Andy Burnham’s growing stature has fuelled hopes of a Labour revival – but ALAN SIMPSON warns that Britain’s crisis runs far deeper than just its leadership and traces its roots to decades of financialised capitalism
CHRISTMAS is cancelled. The Bethlehem municipality confirmed last month that all festivities have been scrapped ahead of December 25.
“The reason is the general situation in Palestine; people are not really into any celebration, they are sad, angry and upset; our people in Gaza are being massacred in cold blood,” a spokesperson said.
I was in Bethlehem one Christmas Eve and phoned my mother — a good Catholic. She said: “How lovely dear.” I first had to explain that it was Orthodox Christmas Eve — January 5 or Twelfth Night — and the reality of Bethlehem today, rather than the Bethlehem of myth and religion. Walled in and walled off from Jerusalem, shops and hotels closed down — the only tourists were Americans bussed in to the “manger” and out by Israeli tourist companies with commentaries from Israeli guides.
Bezalel Smotrich’s measures to extend Israeli property law into the West Bank are a continuation of a decades-long project to dispossess Palestinians and preclude statehood, argues HUGH LANNING
On International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, HUGH LANNING warns that the US-led “Comprehensive Plan” entrenches decades of Western complicity in Israel’s domination and denial of Palestinian land and rights
How can we claim to be human while our countries still support and defend the massacres in Palestine, asks HUGH LANNING
HUGH LANNING reports on an initiative that will aim at counteracting the anti-Palestine narratives spoon-fed to Western governments and the mass media by Israel’s propaganda machine


