Jonathan Cook

The headline above, about yet another Israeli operation to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians in the tiny, besieged and utterly destroyed enclave of Gaza, was published in last week’s Middle East Eye. When I began studying Israeli history more than a quarter of a century ago, people claiming to be experts proffered plenty of excuses to … Continue reading “Nothing’s Changed Since 1948 – Except Now Israel’s Excuses Don’t Work”

There should be nothing surprising about the revelation that troops at Sde Teiman, a detention camp set up by Israel in the wake of Hamas’s 7 October attack on southern Israel, are routinely using rape as a weapon of torture against Palestinian inmates. Last week, nine soldiers from a prison unit, Force 100, were arrested … Continue reading “Israel Is in a Death Spiral. Who Will It Take Down With It?”

BBC coverage of the attack on a football pitch in the Golan Heights on Saturday has been intentionally misleading. The BBC’s evening news entirely ignored the fact that those killed by the blast are a dozen Syrians, not Israeli citizens, and that for decades the surviving Syrian population in the Golan, most of them Druze, … Continue reading “More Dead Children. More BBC ‘News’ Channeling Israeli Propaganda as Its Own”

There is only one country in the world right now, in the midst of Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is guaranteed dozens of standing ovations from the vast majority of its elected representatives. That country is not Israel, where he has been a hugely divisive figure for many years. It is … Continue reading “Only a Failing US Empire Would Be So Blind as To Cheer Netanyahu and His Genocide”

It is only right that we all take a moment to celebrate the victory of Julian Assange’s release from 14 years of detention, in varying forms, to be united, finally, with his wife and children – two boys who have been denied the chance to ever properly know their father. His last five years were … Continue reading “Julian Assange: Freedom This Time, No Thanks to the Media”

Israel hasn’t just crossed the Biden administration’s pretend “red lines” in Gaza. With its massacre at Nuseirat refugee camp at the weekend, Israel drove a bulldozer through them. On Saturday, an Israeli military operation to free four Israelis held captive by Hamas since its 7 October attack on Israel resulted in the killing of more … Continue reading “The Day the West Defined ‘Success’ as a Massacre of 270 Palestinians”

Israel’s claim that a single comma exempts it from having to respect the International Court of Justice’s order last week to immediately halt its murderous attack on Rafah should be ridiculed. Instead it is being given space to breathe by complicit media like the Guardian. The paper’s diplomatic editor offers an “analysis” that takes seriously … Continue reading “The Media Used a Single Comma To Distract From a Ruling To Stop Genocide”

On a misty November morning 21 years ago, I was desperately trying to remain camouflaged. Concealed in the foliage of an orange grove in Israel’s rural Galilee, I hurriedly took photos of a drab concrete building not marked on any map. Even the original road sign identifying the site as Facility 1391 had been removed … Continue reading “The Message of Israel’s Torture Chambers Is Directed at Us All, Not Just Palestinians”

Suddenly, western politicians from US President Joe Biden to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have become ardent champions of “restraint” – in a very last-minute scramble to avoid regional conflagration. Iran launched a salvo of drones and missiles at Israel at the weekend in what amounted a largely symbolic show of strength. Many appear to have been … Continue reading “The West Now Wants ‘Restraint’ – After Months of Fueling a Genocide in Gaza”

For weeks, as Gaza was battered with bombs and the body count in the tiny enclave rose inexorably, Western publics had little choice but to rely on Israel’s word for what happened on 7 October. Some 1,150 Israelis were killed during an unprecedented attack on Israeli communities and military posts next to Gaza. Beheaded babies, … Continue reading “We Were Lied Into the Gaza Genocide. Al Jazeera Has Shown Us How”