Reposted by @awesome-welles.bsky.social
You’ve seen how the system reacts when it perceives a terrible threat like Greenies throwing paint, or grannies protesting genocide. You know what that looks like. It looks nothing like this.
awesome-welles.bsky.social
@awesome-welles.bsky.social
460 followers 783 following 905 posts
A Poundshop Dave Dodd I'm not putting details in, so don't DM, but if you want to chat, reply to a post & we'll find a way : )
![John Rentoul @rentouljohn.bsky.soc... • 31m
Jonathan Powell advised Ed Miliband not to ban imports from settlements before Israeli elections - Tim Shipman spectator.com/ article/reve...
The British ambassador in Tel Aviv, Simon Walters, who was of the same opinion, delivered a 'very explicit warning not to move so quickly. As a former director of national security for the Middle East in the Foreign Office, he had a deep understanding of the security implications. More remarkably, Jonathan Powell, the National Security Adviser, was of the same view. He was the most important figure in government on foreign policy during Keir Starmer's premiership, but now seems to have been ignored on the first major issue of Burnham's tenure.
What Powell and Walters sensed was that Benjamin Netanyahu, the combative Israeli Prime Minister, was in trouble in the polls and likely to lose his majority, and that any intervention before polling day would be weaponised by the Israeli right to drum up support for the government.
This has been confirmed by three different sources. 'Ed wants to get rid of Netanyahu and the Smotrich/Ben-Gvir lot [Netanyahu's far-right coalition partners], a senior security source says. 'He was explicitly told that would be less likely if he did this?](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:5hyjbx4hnlxe5il24ydnn4sr/bafkreib2ziydoc7bmt7sun2jla3wvpajdylazjcf2jkemcdthgrsrv7tzi)
