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Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
Just in: the BBC has replied to complaints about Newsnight's interview with Bernie Sanders.
Sanders called for "no more military aid for the extremist government in Israel". Victoria Derbyshire answered on Israel's behalf:
- "Okay. The Israeli government would deny that they are extremist."
The BBC's whole defence is one sentence:
"We reject the suggestion that highlighting the fact that the Israeli government would dispute Mr Sanders' description was inappropriate."
Nobody made that suggestion.
Complainants asked why Newsnight supplied Israel's denial and left out what Israel's own ministers have said:
Yoav Gallant announcing a complete siege of Gaza and saying "We are fighting human animals", and Bezalel Smotrich saying it might be "justified and moral" to let two million Gazans die of hunger until the hostages were returned. The BBC mentions neither.
It calls Israel's denial "the fact". It was a guess: Israel "would" dispute it. Complainants asked whether the BBC had a statement from the Israeli government or whether the presenter supplied the denial herself. The BBC does not say.
In the BBC's own account, the only answer to that denial came from Sanders: "what they've done to the Palestinian people, in my view, is genocidal." The BBC spoke for Israel and left its guest to answer alone.
The reply then declares the interview "accurate, duly impartial" and answers none of the questions complainants asked:
• Why have many Israeli talking points gone unchallenged, with no interjection on what Palestinians say?
• What editorial judgement made the denial necessary at that moment?
• Was it a response from the Israeli government, or one the presenter anticipated?
• How was the denial tested against Israeli officials' documented statements, and what other BBC coverage does the BBC rely on for due impartiality?
• Will Newsnight review whether presenters apply the same scrutiny when they put Israeli denials to guests?
• Why doesn't due impartiality extend to what Israel's leaders have said, including the words of Netanyahu and Herzog put to the International Court of Justice as evidence of genocidal intent?
If the BBC is going to speak for Israel's government, it owes viewers that government's own words too.
If you complained and are unhappy with the reply, log in to your NewsCord account, paste the BBC's reply and we will file your Stage 1b complaint for you.
You need your BBC case number (it starts CAS-) and the email address you complained from: newscord.org/account/campaig…
The BBC consistently interrupts every guest that criticises Israel with a defence on their behalf: “Israel would say [insert genocide justification here]”
They say they do this for “transparency” and “due impartiality”.
If they were honest about that, they would also add the other things Israel themselves have said.
Allow us to demonstrate:
1. “Israel would say [genocide justification] although Isaac Herzog, Israel’s President did say on 12 October 2023 ‘It is an entire nation out there that is responsible’”
2. “Israel would say [genocide justification]. Netanyahu did also say in a letter to his soldiers on November 2023 that Gaza is a ‘holy war of total annihilation’”
3. “Israel would say [genocide justification]. On 9 October 2023, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant also said ‘We are fighting against human animals.’”
4. “Israel Katz, the Energy Minister on 13 October 2023, did say that Gaza's civilians would ‘not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world.’”
5. “Bezalel Smotrich, Finance Minister in August 2024 said starving two million people “might be just and moral until they return the hostages.’”
The BBC has consistently hidden behind “transparency” and “due impartiality” to defend Israel at every opportunity.
But their cherry-picking of what they say after “Israel says”, is telling of just how opaque and partial they are.
“Israel says” is not inherently bad, if one actually says what Israel says.
Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
8 of the 11 Democrats who skipped the vote to impeach war criminal Pete Hegseth were not “caught in traffic.” They were at an AIPAC-affiliated event that was scheduled at the same time as the impeachment vote by the Democrat’s House whip Katherine Clark. Turns out she was whipping votes to protect, not impeach, Hegseth. This was all planned because their AIPAC donors don’t want Hegseth impeached. If Hegseth is held accountable for war crimes it opens up the possibility of more Zionist war criminals being held accountable. They want to preserve the corrupt world we live in now where US/Zionist war criminals murder with impunity.
Big thanks to @JulianAndreone who broke the story about the AIPAC-affiliated meeting being scheduled at the same time as the Hegseth impeachment vote.
This is a massive scandal: 8 of the 11 Democrats that didn’t show up to vote to impeach war criminal Pete Hegseth were at an AIPAC-affiliated event. The Israeli lobby doesn’t want Hegseth impeached because it wants him to keep committing war crimes against Iran. Both parties are traitors and must go.
Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
Read the Israeli army’s tweet and then read it again and again. “We proactively killed kids for hanging out in an area.” This is another way of saying that they engaged in target practice, using kids as their aim.
Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
🔊 SOUND ON 🔊
🚨As per the attached recorded conversation, HAC is aware of evidence indicating that GMC complaints against anti-genocide doctors framed as alleged AS may be handled by a defined group or cohort of @gmcuk personnel rather than simply being allocated in the ordinary way across the Fitness to Practise function. We therefore require the GMC to disclose the recorded information which establishes precisely what arrangement exists.
📍 Support our work today, donate to our legal fund: tinyurl.com/mr2bahjr
Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
Israel slaughtered the goalkeeper of the Gaza Sport Club (GSC), Mahmoud Abdel-Malik, in a strike today in Gaza City.
Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
Sagal Abdi-Wali has just filed her first register of interest in Parliament, revealing who funded her election campaign in the Holborn & St Pancras by-election where she defeated Zack Polanski.
And they stink.
They are from sources with strong historical ties to Labour Together. And through one of her key donors, Sagal is linked to investments in companies like Palantir and Elbit Systems and Boeing. There is something completely broken about how the reporting regime for donations works that we're only finding this out now, after the election.
The returns show that Abdi-Wali had two big donors: Daniel Luhde-Thompson and his wife Cressida Pollock who donated jointly, and Green Britain Group Ltd, the holding company of Dale Vince's Ecotricity. Both donated £50k to the campaign.
Daniel Luhde-Thompson is mega-wealthy. He is one of the co-founders of the quant-trading hedge fund Quadrature Capital. Quadrature, whose holding company is registered in the Caymans, donated £4m to the Labour Party during the 2024 General Election.
It was the single largest donation Labour had ever received. But nobody knew this fact during the election itself, as the donation was only declared after the election as it was made in a specific week-long window that was exempt from immediate reporting.
As I revealed in OpenDemocracy in October 2024, Quadrature had held shares in companies connected to the genocide in Gaza in late 2023 and early 2024. It held an average of $121m in shares in companies linked to the genocide in Gaza between December 2023 and July 2024. This included shareholdings in arms companies like the lead contractor on the F-35, Lockheed Martin.
I've just checked Quadrature's most recent SEC filings submitted at the end of June 2026. They show that Quadrature still has investments in arms companies like Boeing and Lockheed. The June fillings show it held $9m in Elbit shares and an astonishing $117m in Palantir.
What is it with the Labour Party and connections to Palantir?
Luhde-Thompson also donated to Labour Together. He donated £50k at the end of November 2023: smack-bang in the middle of the period when Labour Together hired APCO to investigate journalists (including me and my family) who had exposed Morgan McSweeney's failure to report donations in violation of the law between 2018 and 2020 (of course there is no indication Luhde-Thompson knew about this).
Dale Vince, Sagal's other donor, was also a big donor to Labour Together. He has, most recently, strongly supported approving drilling at Jackdaw and Rosebank oilfields.
We found out about Dale Vince donating to Sagal during the campaign because it was leaked to the Independent. But voters in Holborn & St Pancras had no idea that she was also being funded by Daniel Luhde-Thompson, linking her to Quadrature and, through that, investments in companies complicit in genocide.
There is really something deeply wrong here. Voters were deprived of key information before they cast their vote. Our electoral laws around donations, which allow the mega-rich to dominate our politics, have to be reformed.
Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
“If my father dies in this isolation, let it be remembered that Asim Munir and his cronies have made it so - simply because they fear the threat he poses to their purses. Cowards.” - @Kasim_Khan_1999
#ShiftKhanToHospitalNow #FreeImranKhan
Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
Israel starved a child to death in prison
Israel to release body of Palestinian teen who died malnourished in prison haaretz.com/west-bank/2026-1…
Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
Meet the British surgeon who believes Israeli soldiers were using starving Palestinian children for target practice. Here's some of the Israeli savagery he saw in Gaza:
1. A twelve-year-old boy was shot while trying to obtain food for his starving family. Maynard operated on him. The bullet had torn through major blood vessels. The boy died on the operating table.
2. Children arrived with gunshot wounds concentrated in particular parts of their bodies on different days. One day, heads and necks. Another, chests. Another, abdomens. Then arms and legs. Maynard and his colleagues struggled to believe this was coincidental.
3. Four teenage boys, aged approximately 12–15, arrived with bullets through their testicles. All four came in within roughly an hour. Maynard witnessed their arrival and spoke with the urologists treating them. He suspected Israeli soldiers were playing a game of target practice.
4. A seven-month-old baby was so emaciated that he mistook her for a newborn. She was wasting away before his eyes. The hospital had almost nothing suitable to feed her.
5. Eleven-year-old Habiba survived a devastating explosive injury, only to die from lack of nutrition. Maynard spent an entire night reconstructing her shattered oesophagus. The operation succeeded. But she could not eat, and the hospital lacked the nutritional support she needed. Four weeks later, she was dead.
6. A six-year-old boy and his eight-year-old sister had lost their parents. The girl's leg was so badly fractured that the blood supply to her foot was threatened. Doctors had to straighten it without pain relief. Maynard could still hear her screams.
7. A pregnant woman was shot while sheltering in a tent. Maynard operated on her. The bullet missed her uterus by just a few centimetres. Both mother and unborn child survived.
8. A missile struck the intensive-care unit beside the operating theatre while he was performing surgery. It happened at Al-Aqsa Hospital in January 2024. He finished the operation. The foreign medical team subsequently had to evacuate.
9. A theatre nurse he knew was killed in his tent alongside his three young children. Maynard continued operating as Gaza's already devastated medical workforce suffered further losses.
10. Doctors he had known for years were barely recognisable from starvation. Some had lost 20 or 30 kilograms. They continued treating wounded children while their own bodies deteriorated. And patients whose organs had been surgically repaired were dying because hunger prevented their wounds from healing.
Maynard had been visiting Gaza since 2010. He knew the hospitals, the surgeons, the nurses.
He had seen the devastation of earlier wars.
But nothing prepared him for what he witnessed in 2025.
Speaking about the apparent pattern of gunshot injuries, he said:
“I would never have believed this possible unless I'd witnessed this with my own eyes.”
Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
We all know which political figures, parties, and "news" organisations are responsible for this. The police know, Mi5 knows, the government knows, and the public know.
Four doctors have accused police of failing to properly investigate a racist attack in Chichester which saw them being called rapists and paedophiles in the street.
Effective action is long overdue.
Sussex Police confirmed that they are reviewing their response to the incident in Southgate shortly before 11.20pm on October 20.
The doctors, who work at St Richard's Hospital, had just left The Foundry pub when they claimed two teenage girls started verbally attacking them out of the blue.
Among the disgusting slurs they were alleged to use were “you immigrants, go back to your own country", "get back in your dinghies", "you Pakis, “you’re all rapists” and “you rape children”.
"When we attempted to leave, we were followed and physically assaulted, being repeatedly punched, kicked and struck across the face with a handbag."
A Sussex Police spokesperson said: "The incident is being treated as a racist hate crime and officers are investigating."
The suspects, a young woman aged 18 and a 17-year-old girl, were initially detained and spoken to by officers in connection with the investigation.
According to Sussex Police, arrangements are being made for them to be interviewed in relation to this matter.
The doctors, who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons, have since written an open letter to Chichester MP Jess Brown-Fuller, where they recounted the harrowing incident and raised concerns about the police response.
The doctors said they called police because they feared for their safety. But they claimed officers spoke to the alleged attackers before taking accounts from the victims, despite the group having made the emergency call.
"In fear for our safety following escalating aggression, we sought the help of the police," the letter states.
They added: "To say we felt neglected and unsupported in that moment would be quite an understatement."
The group also questioned why officers initially only took the details of one person despite all four being involved in the incident.
According to the group, officers initially indicated that formal statements would be taken on the night - but 15 days later, no statements had been taken.
The doctors say they were contacted by Victim Support around a week after the incident and were told the organisation had only recently been notified.
They have also questioned whether the alleged racial aspect of the attack has been properly recognised and investigated as a hate crime.
The group said: "To our knowledge, no arrests have been made, and we have received no reassurance regarding the progress of the investigation or the steps being taken to hold those responsible accountable."
The doctors said the incident had a significant impact on their wellbeing, with some requiring time away from work at St Richard's Hospital.
This comes after actor Munya Chawawa said he had witnessed more racism and xenophobia in Chichester during his recent stint performing at the Chichester Festival Theatre than he had in his entire life.
This has led to a march against racism being organised in the city and has brought Chichester's attitude to race into sharp relief.
The doctors also expressed concern about what the incident could mean for other ethnic minority healthcare workers and residents in the city.
The group said the experience had left them questioning whether they could feel safe living and working in the area because of their ethnicity and background.
They wrote: "Our intention in raising these concerns is not simply to seek answers for ourselves, but to ensure that victims of racially motivated violence are treated with dignity, taken seriously and provided with appropriate support."
The group added that they hope their experience will lead to "meaningful accountability and change".
theargus.co.uk/news/26706832…
Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
Israelis, backed by soldiers, have attacked a Palestinian homestead in al-Khalil for 35 days: now they’ve poisoned the family’s only water well qudsnen.com/post?id=68582&sl…
Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
You must know by now that the Labour Party is a party that prioritises Israel's interests over human suffering.
The videos and carefully-worded condemnations are for optics, nothing more.
They'll push right up to the acceptable line but they're not prepared to cross it if it means seriously upsetting Israel.
Palestine doesn't need politicians performing concern for the cameras.
It needs politicians with a backbone.
Labour isn't it.
Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
🚨Authority Led by Burnham as Mayor Paid Nearly £1m to Anonymous Recipients
The Greater Manchester Combined Authority — led at the time by Andy Burnham, who was then Mayor of Greater Manchester, has funnelled nearly £1 million of taxpayer money to completely anonymous beneficiaries since 2024 in a series of secret payments.
The total breaks down into clear chunks: £83,000 in rent paid to a hidden landlord, thousands more handed out in anonymous consultancy fees, and a £210,000 capital grant given to a property developer whose name was fully redacted from the public ledger.
When journalists asked questions, the authority called the missing developer name a simple “human error” and blamed the rest of the secrecy on data protection laws.
Ordinary citizens who make a small mistake on a tax form face investigations and heavy fines. Yet when this body hands a fifth of a million pounds of public cash to an unnamed developer, it is dismissed as a clerical typo.
This is how the modern political class operates — using the language of bureaucracy as a legal shield to move public money into private, hidden hands.
They are not running an open city. They are protecting a shadow ledger with your cash, and they do not want you knowing who is actually cashing the cheques.
For a man who now sits in Downing Street preaching accountability, the fact that this level of secrecy happened on his watch as Mayor is not just embarrassing — it is yet another troubling incident from his past that raises serious questions about the standards he claims to represent.
Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
He knew GCHQ were involved
He knew the SAS were advising
He knew that RAF spy planes were used
He knew the BBC were spreading misinformation
He knew the Palestinian population were being eradicated
Starmer is a Genocidaire, without qualification
And Burnham is participating, too
We launched this petition 2 weeks ago.
Now, we are just 2,000 signatures away from forcing a debate in Parliament.
Will you be one of 100,000 who helped exposed the truth of Britain’s complicity in genocide?
petition.parliament.uk/petit…
Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
It’s hard to grasp the BBC’s systematic attempt to launder Israeli propaganda until you see the sheer scale of it. Here's a compilation of them doing it at 2x speed.
The latest was on Newsnight on 4 November. When Bernie Sanders called Israel’s government extremist, Victoria Derbyshire answered for it: “And the Israeli government would deny that they are extremists.”
As this video shows, BBC presenters repeatedly do this as guests describe Israel’s crimes: “Israel would say.” “Israel would deny.” “They would reject that.”
We counted 70 of these denials and justifications in 52 aired interviews. The BBC calls this impartiality. But in not one of those 52 did a presenter raise any of these words from Israel’s own leaders:
- “We are fighting human animals.” Yoav Gallant, 9 October 2023
- “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible.” Isaac Herzog, 12 October 2023
- “They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world.” Israel Katz, 13 October 2023
- “Remember what Amalek did to you.” Benjamin Netanyahu, 3 November 2023
- Starving two million people in Gaza until the hostages came back might be “justified and moral”. Bezalel Smotrich, 5 August 2024
On 10 October 2023, Tahani Mustafa told the BBC that Israeli forces were not distinguishing civilians from fighters. The presenter replied: “They would reject that.” Mustafa then had to bring up Gallant’s “human animals” herself. The BBC supplied the denial. The guest had to supply Israel’s own words.
That is cherry-picking. The Royal Charter requires the BBC to be impartial, and the public pays for it through the licence fee. In these interviews, it handed its audience Israel’s denials and left out its leaders’ own words, during a genocide streamed live to the world.
We have archived the BBC’s coverage for three years, and we are now counting all of it: 50,000 video clips and many more written excerpts.
We are calling this first part: "BBC: The Would Say Files".
Handing Israel its denials is only one of the ways the BBC launders Israeli propaganda, so we will count every other technique too. Over the next few weeks, we will announce each milestone as we complete the report.
These are the first results, with every clip, quote and source: newscord.org/editorials/bbc-…
Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
One Labour MP told The Observer that Dan Jarvis, the security minister, had assured Labour MPs that peaceful protesters would be unaffected by the ban on PA. “That is very clearly not the case,” the MP said.
Except it’s worse than that.
Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper bundled PA into the same proscription order as two far-right terrorist groups, Maniacs Murder Cult and the Russian Imperial Movement.
Labour MPs who wanted to ban those two groups had to vote to ban PA as well.
Any MP who wanted to vote against banning PA had to vote against the entire order.
That was the choice their own government gave them.
Now there have been more than 4,000 arrests of non violent protesters.
Like Baron Hain, I don't support PA, and I also agree with Baron Hain when he said the decision "is intellectually bankrupt, politically unprincipled and morally wrong"
Which perfectly sums up Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper too - what a disgraceful legacy they have.
🤖 Made with AI
Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
Does nobody realise how deeply Andy Burnham is involved in the scam that Freeports and SEZ's are costing taxpayers £84 billion+? Andy Burnham is already in BED WITH BLACKROCK. Burnham has kept this quiet hasn't he - BlackRock's joint venture (JV) with the Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF), the UK's largest Local Government Pension Scheme. Announced in late March 2026, the partnership targets up to £1 billion in UK primary healthcare real estate (NHS-leased GP surgeries, primary care centres, and related facilities) by 2030. He is not the squeaky clean politician he is being made out to be and now we find out that his wife is a beneficiary of a contract he awarded for the EV charging of the Bee buses.
Zaffer Iqbal retweeted
JUST IN: 🇺🇸 🇮🇱 The Democratic Party will IGNORE the American people and make Hakeem Jeffries House Speaker.
Ro Khanna has just announced that Jefferies WILL be House Speaker and he “will have the UNANIMOUS support of the caucus.”
There you have it. Israel has decided.
1 MILLION people signed a petition to remove Jefferies. Ignored.
There is only one party in America. The uniparty. And they don’t serve the people.
BREAKING: 🇺🇸🇮🇱 Over 1 million people have signed a petition calling for Hakeem ‘AIPAC’ Jefferies to be REJECTED as House Speaker.
That’s what happens when you take AIPAC money and have secret meetings with Jared Kushner.
Epstein also received a email begging him to join a fundraising dinner and meet with Jeffries.
[Petition below 👇🏼 ]
