from Haaretz

 Israel News

Analysis 

Israel Blocked 37 Aid Groups From Gaza – and Then Claimed Credit for Their Work

Israel has pushed responsibility for Gaza's civilians onto international aid groups, then smeared, restricted and ultimately barred many of them.

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact

The Warsaw Pact was put in place as a consequence of the rearming of West Germany inside NATO. Soviet leaders, like many European leaders on both sides of the Iron Curtain, feared Germany being once again a military power and a direct threat. The consequences of German militarism remained a fresh memory among the Soviets and Eastern Europeans.

"Net negative migration" means ... ? More going than arriving in Israel

 Israel's population growth fell to a new low in 2025, rising by just 0.9 percent, a study published Wednesday found, attributing the decline to lower birthrates, higher mortality, and chiefly to net negative migration. The study, conducted by demography expert Prof. Alex Weinreb, described the 0.9 rise in population as "an unprecedented decline," and said 2025 was a demographic turning point for Israel.

It's not so much a shift in power

It's not so much a shift in power from councils to Mayors but a duplication and a doubling of everything that that brings.  Hence, Thatcher got read of the earlier version ('iteration', in modern parlance) of Mayors and Combined Authorities, called County Councils.

It was the W Mids County Council councillors under present, still repeatedly re-elected, Cllr Phil Bateman who brought back trams only twenty years after the same councillors of all parties got rid of them.  Phil's trams went on two mainline railways now destroyed and a third, very nearly!  The idiots.

The single figure head Mayor is a compliant rubber stamp - as are the councillors.  Surplus to requirements - the lot of them.

from Haaretz

GAZA: A group of 19 Israel-based human rights NGOs condemned Israel's decision to bar dozens of international aid groups from operating in Gaza, saying that it "undermines principled humanitarian action, endangers staff and communities, and compromises effective aid delivery."

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres criticized a move by Israel to ban electricity or water to facilities owned by the UNRWA, a UN spokesperson said, adding that UNRWA is an "integral" part of the world body. UNRWA Commissioner General Phillipe Lazzarini said the decision was part of an ongoing " systematic campaign to discredit UNRWA and thereby obstruct" the role it plays in providing assistance to Palestinian refugees.

"Israel's decision to prevent 37 international aid organizations from continuing their work in the Gaza Strip is the latest step in a policy that has been both cruel and amateurish in its treatment of Gaza's civilian population. Like other dark regimes around the world, the Israeli government has spun a web of lies and conspiracies around international organizations in an effort to blur responsibility for its own grave failure" – Nir Hasson

■ ISRAEL: Throughout the Gaza war, Palestinian security prisoners were sometimes denied drinking water for up to half a day as collective punishment, according to 2024 visit reports by the Public Defender's Office. In January, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel asked a court to make the reports public after the state initially blocked their release, citing national security concerns and the risk of harming hostages held in Gaza.

from Connecticut - an Israeli reader of Haaretz

 if even a clinic, which is supposed to be the most protected refuge, becomes an arena for killings, what place is still protected?

A criminal government is only interested in protecting itself from arrest.

Has it been the concern that the criminal government of Israel has been attacking clinics and doctors at work in Gaza for more than 2 years?. Doctors without Borders months ago reported that in Gaza, 2 healthcare workers per day has been the average killed, the direct result of official Israelo policy. Yesterday Israel banned Doctors without Borders from entering Gaza anymore

Brum bankruptcy has not been helped by transport idiocy, constant changes and much waste of assets

Dear Richard,

 December 2025 Quiz

I first came to Brum in 1967 and then was a student from 1968. I've seen everything imaginable ever since - but am now shock-hardened!  Read this to become impervious, too - and for some good, clean fun!

 Trumpland Transport in the West Midlands since 1981

 My Christmas 2025 letter

Always constant transport (ring road and tram/railways) construction and destruction (eg. 50s tramways) and re-construction (eg 80/90s Metro tramway instead of railway reinstated).

Centenary Square was rebuilt three times between 2000 and 2020. The last version cost £16 million.

Smallbrook Queensway crescent of buildings built in the 60s and demolished now.  John Christophers' excellent plan ignored.

After nearly 40 years of writing to the authorities, they still overlooked three mainline Brum/Black Country railways which could have been reinstated. All three were spoiled as mainline railways. My major success was playing a small part in stopping the Brum to Bristol mainline turned into part tramway to ruin it as a mainline railway! But it is taking, so far, nearly ten years - from 2016, to rebuild the three stations on the third mainline instead of tram stops, as originally planned!!

Trams first to get trains reinstated (which never materialise, of course) in this famous, absurd quote from 2000 by Tom well-meaning Magrath, Passenger Services Director, Centro (now TfWM):

"Light rail provision provides the basis for restoring heavy rail services at the appropriate time."

Thus, doubling, at a minimum, the cost is typical of how Brum has seen how it must do construction projects, even when the Black Country Mainline Railway is "of national strategic significance", according to a letter sent to me by Network Rail and the DfT!

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

After 40 years, there remains about 100 Kms of railway wasted in the West Midlands as motorways and roads become more congested.  SEE:

 Railfuture's full map.pdf

Best wishes for a more sensible 2026 in this crazy, mixed up, upside down, back to front, inside out world!!

Liberal democracies allowed aggression to be rewarded in 1948 - and violence and more massacres ever since.

 "The ascendance of xenophobic, America-First nationalism has cast doubt on the long presumed identity of American and Israeli interests and rapidly eroded the taboo on open antisemitism, while Israel's decades-long occupation of the West Bank and siege of Gaza put in question that compatibility of Zionism and liberal democracy."

from   warupdates@mc.haaretz.com   on 20 December 2025

Dan Sagir:- Like Israel, South Africa's Apartheid Regime Banned Foreign Journalists. It's Harder to Hide the Truth Now

"In 1986, I was deported by South Africa's regime for reporting on the anti-apartheid struggle. Today, Israel's government is also trying to control what the world sees about its actions in Gaza – yet the truth has a way of breaking through

"In early March, the Israeli government made a cruel decision: to stop the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, claiming that "Hamas' refusal to accept the Witkoff Plan" left it no choice. The attempt to starve the civilian population as a bargaining tool failed resoundingly: Within a short time, food warehouses emptied out and hunger began to spread throughout the Strip. Horrific images of starving civilians, including young children, were disseminated around the world. U.S. President Donald Trump was forced to intervene and to pressure Israel to restore the supply of aid and to strive to end the war."

Two peoples fighting over one land was recognised in Balfour

Comment from 'Connecticut' over Haaretz article:

"You don't seem to realize Oli that every thing you post in response to this article only illustrates what the author has so accurately put forward: Zionists cannot tolerate the existence of non-Zionists between the river and the sea, and will bend any fact, tell any lie, to propagandize that what they are doing is legal, justified and moral. They will even commit crimes and expect to get away with them. They are terrorists who create endless terror. It is the only world they see and know."

Let RIP!

I feel it is Big Power rivalry, always.

The American led West always wanting to remain the Dominant Player, the Top Dog in the world.

We must have our colony adjacent to China and another right up against Russia's border. Like the 1962 crisis that nearly ended the world.

We must have our NATO military exercises as close to Russia as we can get away with. Sail our super prestigious, £3.5 billion each, aircraft carriers as close to China as international waters allow.

A bigger expansionist NATO, of as many members as we can collect.

Growing international arms trading of more countries importing Western weapons and using them to keep our factories busy and employment high.

More wars around the world would help no end.  Robin Cook's "moral foreign policy" was short lived.

Much more living unnaturally on a natural planet and infinitely on a finite planet ...

Humanity will never end.  We are just the greatest; we can't help it.

This is what all writing, investigation and academic research must be about

This year tested almost everything we take for granted – public trust, democratic norms, and the idea that facts still matter.

From the war in Gaza and its devastating human toll, to political upheaval in Israel, to rising tensions on campuses and attacks on Jewish communities worldwide, the story of this region has been relentlessly complex. And too often, it has been flattened into slogans, stripped of context, or distorted beyond recognition.

At Haaretz, we don't accept that.

Our journalists begin with verified facts, but they don't stop there. They explain how today's headlines connect to decades of policy and history. They show how decisions made in Jerusalem reverberate through Gaza, the West Bank, Washington and the Jewish world. And they insist on covering realities that make people uncomfortable – because the truth doesn't defend itself.

This year, our reporting came from the ground up: reporters witnessing events firsthand, editors rigorously testing every claim, analysts placing breaking news within a wider framework of law, power and consequence. They challenged official narratives, traced long-term consequences and insisted on asking questions that many would rather avoid.

Our journalism resists spin, challenges false narratives and refuses to look away.

That work is more necessary now than ever.

Thank you for reading.

Esther Solomon
Haaretz English Editor-in-chief

Standing Together - but not with Israel's government

"Two years ago a group of Jewish and Palestinian peace activists stood almost alone in Israel in calling for a ceasefire, as Israel launched a massive offensive on Gaza in response to the Hamas attacks of 7th October 2023. Emily Wither returns to hear how the lives of these activists have changed. She explores whether their message of peace and coexistence is breaking through at a time when societal divisions are deeper than ever.

"The group Standing Together, known for their matching purple t-shirts, is a group of Jewish Israelis and Palestinian citizens of Israel (referred to by the state as Israeli Arabs, the country’s largest minority making up over 20% of the population). "It is unusual in either Israel or Palestine to find a mixed group working together for a shared cause and advocating for coexistence. Standing Together has received criticism from both sides of the conflict; with many Israelis calling them traitors and some Palestinian groups calling for a boycott of the movement. Despite all this the group say the only way to achieve a lasting peace is for the communities to work together."                                 Reporter: Emily Wither

I believe, regrettably ...

It seems, how we are treating the Palestinians in Gaza and, now, even the West Bank, is a watered down liquidation of the Jews when our Christian nation of Germany had 12 years of evil madness under the Nazis.

The novel 'Lord of the Flies' by William Golding is a lesson in how even the most saintly human can degenerate into inhuman savagery and barbarity.

We all need the humility to recognise that our behaviour can so easily slip over into brutality when the circumstances are right.

West Yorkshire Trams when trains and buses need those wasted billions

YES, "buses are better", especially if everyone gets them as Fare-Free Public Transport, as OAPs like me have had, in my case, for nearly 18 years, in all of England.

• There is a working railway line between Bradford and Leeds.  Make that popular and successful and, fare-free buses for all with the public money saved from abandoning West Yorkshire trams.
• They destroyed every tramway in the 1950s, apart from Blackpool.  Replaced with diesel buses!
• From 1981, W Midlands County Council was promising us 200 Kms of tramway, of ten lines by the year 2000 CE.  We got 20 Kms by that year, with 18 Kms on the first mainline railway destroyed to get trams.  2 Kms on a main road, still as clogged with traffic as ever.  Actually, it's more congested now.
• By 2023, that figure had gone up to 23 Kms towards the 200 Kms.  Since Jan 2020:
• They are promising us 150 miles by 2040 for £15 billion (Jan 2020 figure).

The full sorry saga of squandering public money for trams is told here:

 Trumpland Transport in the West Midlands since 1981

The first 300 years of practice by the Followers of the Way was in line with Christ's spirit and practice

The post Constantine Christian world brought Christian believers to support their nations' domination and power over other nations.  To argue that their way of conducting their affairs around the world was in line with the life and teaching of Jesus Christ in the Gospels.  But not for me!

So we have the Russian Orthodox Church supporting their countries war with Ukraine and we have our Christians supporting our nations' efforts, to help Ukraine win and stay within our Western orbit, rather than go back to the Russian side.

In the USA, we have their Christians and the evangelicals, in particular, supporting our Judeo-Christian Western dominance in the Middle East.  This is seen with our particular brand of right wing, very wealthy and powerful Israeli nation being the shining light of Judeo-Christian religion and culture in the otherwise dominating Muslim/Arab world of oil rich states - but with diminishing reserves of the black gold.

Annexing Greenland for America, taking the Occupied West Bank to our side and keeping tight control of Gaza is all part of Wealthy Westerners maintaining their Judeo-Christian dominance in the world.

Their Lord and Saviour's rejection of such greedy, selfish pre-occupations of gaining more at the Other's expense is immaterial and out of date after 2,000 years of domination around the world.  I disagree.

We dominate and control by having our Elizabethan piracy, followed by conquering and taking over other lands lock, stock and barrel to bring enslavement and empire to enrich ourselves further.  All contrary to the most obvious ethical teaching and certainly contrary to the spirit of the life and teaching of the Founder of their religion and culture.

All of this is justified because Jesus Christ never told his Centurion contact to leave the Roman army.  Christ never preached against slavery, never railed against the Roman Empire of his day as being the exact opposite of His Way of living.

We can go to war because Christ never preached using words like non-violence, non-collaboratlon with evil governments, never preached against the capital punishment of crucifixion and certainly not corporal punishment.  So all those things are just perfectly fine and dandy to do!  But not for me.

Anyway, Christian living is about recognising the spiritual battle in the spiritual realm.  Christian pastor Dr Mike Evans wrote,

"No battle can be won in the physical realm until it is first fought and won in the spiritual realm.  I'm talking about the battle over Israel's future."  20 October 2025

Therefore, we fight on God's side against the Devil.  How that actually works out in day to day living means supporting, it seems, our government's behaviour - for good or ill in the spirit of Romans 12.  It means being uncritical because otherwise you are judging another person and that is definitely anathema and contrary to biblical teaching.  Far worse than warring for years to keep our Power and Control around the world!

Dudley Council inattention, uninterest

I have spoken to senior officers at TfWM/WMCA and at the Dudley Gp NHS Trust, both about policy.

May I please, similarly, have a face to face meeting with your Tree Officer and relevant colleagues about the decades old lack of reinstatement after carriageway resurfacing of Manor Way/A 456 aka Halesowen Bypass?  After years of asking, lollipop, standard trees were, eventually, planted but, when gaps appeared, nothing was done.  May I suggest your 2026 New Year Resolution is that Nature will be put higher up the agenda as a positive, practical, helpful way to adapt/mitigate your own 2020 declared Climate Emergency?

May I be allowed to speak to the relevant officers, please?  I have even offered to pay for the proposed, pocket handkerchief, woodland planting scheme at Lapal Lane South/Manor way.  No one has ever come back to me, after months have gone by.  A meeting is overdue, methinks!  Tim Weller

Difference between being anti-Israel and being anti-Semetic - interview by Evan Davis

Mark Regev said, in all innocence, "What is it about the Jewish state that is so offensive?"

PLEASE!  Get Jeremy Bowen, on PM, to answer Mark's question or, to speculate, from his decades of reporting from the Middle East.  His great book from 2022 is 'The Making of the Modern Middle East'.  Essential reading for all, especially for dear Mark Regev.

LITTLE, HARMLESS, INOFFENSIVE ISRAEL!

Last week, on Radio 4 'PM', Mark Regev said, "What is it about the Jewish state that is so offensive?"

Short answer:

Because it IS so offensive in attacking and being aggressive and annexing more Palestinian land - two years of collective punishment, war crimes and "acts of genocide".  Bibi and former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant are wanted for war crimes!

My answer:

Your State of Israel, Mark, was born out of terrorism from 1945 to 1948 with funding from American taxes to help arm the three terrorist gangs.  For one example, only: one gang blew up the King David Hotel in 1946, with 91 killed.

The British were mandated to rule Palestine but the terrorists (one, the Haganah gang, became the IDF) sent the British packing from whence they came.

In other words, contrary to international law, aggression was rewarded.

It has been like this ever since.  Israel and the West has won every war against the Arabs.

The 1956 Suez Crisis, courtesy of Israel and the West, was immoral and illegal.  A war crime.

My taxes, my government, my country has murdered over 70,000 Palestinians in over two years.

Tens of thousands more were injured by indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks by the IDF using American and German weapons, Elbit military products and drones made in factories in England.

Only a small minority of the 70,000 slaughtered would have been Hamas fighters who had every right to defend their country under international law.

In effect, my country stole the land of Palestine and gave it to the Jews after our side murdered six million of them between 1933 and 1945.  'Our side' because Germany was part of the European Christian West when the Nazis came to power in 1933.

David v Goliath reversed!

Parallels between Israel/Palestine then and now.

2,000 years ago we had Palestine ruled by the mighty Roman Empire.  The brutal Romans in charge.

1,948 years later it became the world's only Jewish State where other faiths are found but, the Jews are in charge under brutal Bibi as their longest-serving PM.

He proudly claims the total tally of Hamas operatives killed by his armed forces.  Over 70,000 out of 2 million killed in over two years of attacking Gaza.

The Israeli King Herod slaughtered all the Jewish boys under two years of age.  He feared his power and rule was threatened.

Like Horrible Herod, Bibi believes any concession to the Palestinians would threaten the very existence of his country.  Jeremy Bowen has thought that Bibi feels more secure when he is at war with the Palestinians.

We still have Palestinians but they are like what the Jews were then.  Now under the boot of Bibi, the mighty power in charge.

The Jews plus the all powerful, WMD equipped traditional Christian nations are right behind Israel, except some accept a home for Palestinians must be found for them, now that the Jews have their land.

80 years ago the World War victors were worrying about a land for the surviving Jews after Western wars had brought annihilation for six million of them.  The work of a traditional Christian Western nation that became obsessed with hatred instead of the beautiful attitudes of Matthew 5.

That most famous Jew who has ever lived, fought not for land that Bibi's predecessors have secured from 1948 to the present, at the expense of the Palestinians and through aggression.  He lived and taught of a land far beyond the reach of the Herods and Bibis of this world.  A land in the heart and soul of each one of us.  Those citizens with the heart and understanding of Christ, have an obsession with right living, of compassion and justice for the down trodden and the deprived of everything.

The Gazans live in a barely habitable desert of smashed concrete and rubble.  The Occupied West Bank Palestinians are second class people, barely tolerated by the settlers who are eager to get their hands on more land to complete the occupation of Judea and Samaria.  Out of similar oppression came the Light of the World who wanted the people of His Holy Land to share with the Other.

Instead, it has become the antithesis of Christ's Kingdom on earth.  A stain on Western, so called, civilisation.  It is our rich and powerful liberal democracy that has the lot - all at the expense of the rest - like the Palestinians.       TimWeller1@gmail.com

ESSENTIAL READING after Matthew 5,6,7 and all four Gospels:

'I Shall Not Hate' by Izzeldin Abuelaish

I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity (2011) is a book by Izzeldin Abuelaish which describes his life in Gaza and the killing of three of his daughters in 2009. It narrates both Abuelaish's own story and explores the history of the conflict, as well as supporting calls for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, stating that "violence begets violence and breeds more hatred"  Wikipedia

'The Making of the Modern Middle East' (2022) by Jeremy Bowen.  One of the 25 chapters is 'Gaza'.

WE are each meant to be legal, decent, honest and truthful!

In 300 CE we had the tragedy of Emperor Constantine embracing Christianity.  It then became the norm for coercion, force and violence, already of course in his empire, for Christians to be caught up in it, too.

So Western Christendom, led by England under Elizabeth 1 to take over other countries lock, stock and barrel without consent; looting their treasures, stealing their people to farm land for no wages and housing them in miserable conditions.  No wonder we are so wealthy!

We are meant to have a legal and ethical foreign policy based on justice and honourable behaviour.  Yet, our own ally and friend, Bibi Netanyahu, lacked the integrity to resign after the authorities knew of preparations for the 7.10.23 attack but failed to act.  The shameless Bibi then used the example of the annihilation of Jericho and the Amalekites in the Old Testament, to do exactly the same to Hamas, knowing full well it is impossible to distinguish between combatant and non combatant, between Hamas member and Gazan.  Hence, the International Criminal Court has ordered his arrest for war crime charges to be heard in a criminal court.

He also failed to live up to his own Old Testament teaching in the Scriptures of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.  1,219 people slaughtered. More than 240 people were taken hostage, but for our friend and ally Bibi even OT directives, let alone the New Testament ones that the rest of us try and live by, failed to impress the man.  He is a law unto himself.

Now, his own Commission of Inquiry into 7.10 is to be headed up by himself and most of the members of the commission to be chosen by - wait for it - we all know who: our good friend, Bibi.

"Hamas said its attack was in response to the continued Israeli occupation, the blockade of the Gaza Strip, the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, rising Israeli settler violence, and recent escalations"  Wikipedia