Danny Sharples

The key lesson of the Trump victory for us is that Labour has to deliver the significant improvement in quality of life that people can feel or we face the rise of right wing populism that has swept America. Half measures won’t be enough.

Exclusive: Two Google workers have resigned and another was fired amid protests over a $1.2 billion project providing AI and cloud services to the Israeli government and military ti.me/3xt16hg

Woman simply explains why Shamima Begum should not be allowed back in the UK:

✊🏼 #ceasefirenow

Jurgen Klopp quotes, but its made into rupi kaur poems

This should be getting *way* more news coverage. Just a month into the war, the Foreign Office had "serious concerns" about Israel's compliance with international law, but government ministers hid this fact from the public. I spoke about these revelations in Parliament today:

Rule Britannia isn't a patriotic song. It's a reminder of how we used to brag about our position at the top of the slavery food chain. It's a point of shame, and a distraction from the real change the people of the UK need. #GMB

11 January 2023 - ICJ, The Hague Watching African women & men fighting to save humanity & the int'l legal system against the ruthless attacks supported/enabled by most of the West will remain one of the defining images of our time. This will make history whatever happens.

The empire has never been more exposed. The media has never been more exposed. The door is now ajar. We have to kick it in.

Remember, none of this would have been possible had it not been for all the journalists who have risked and lost their lives documenting every war crime committed. This is thanks to Motaz, Wael, Plestia, Hind, Bisan, Ismail, and all other journalist in Palestine. Our heroes.

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s trial received more coverage, than the charges brought against Israel today in the ICJ for committing genocide.

Today's editorial in Haaretz, Israel's New York Times, reiterates the demand of Israeli families whose loved ones were killed in Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7 to investigate the events of that day – and mounting evidence that the Israeli military fired a tank shell into the house where the Israelis were being held hostage. Many of the hostages and Hamas fighters were incinerated by the explosion. The charred bodies at Be'eri – as well as many more at the Nova festival, where Israeli attack helicopters appear to have opened fire on cars with Israelis inside – were used by Israel in its propaganda war, justifying its subsequent genocidal attack on Gaza. The suspicion is that Israel employed the so-called Hannibal directive, killing the hostages rather than allowing them to be used as bargaining chips for a release of Palestinians – men, women and children – held hostage in Israeli prisons. Haaretz makes the point that the need for an investigation is urgent because of the surviving Israeli hostages held in Gaza. If Israel did prioritise the Hannibal directive on October 7, there is every reason to suspect it may be doing the same with regards to the hostages in Gaza. In other words, rather than try to retrieve them safely, either militarily or diplomatically, Israel may have decided it is better to sacrifice them as casually as it did its own civilians on October 7 – rather than allow them to become an obstacle to pursuing genocide in Gaza. Or as Haaretz states: 'The IDF must investigate and provide these answers now, while the war is in full swing, because those answers are relevant to the fates of the 136 hostages who are still, after 95 days, prisoners of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.' Source: archive.ph/lWbP7

The BBC's reporting on Gaza – or rather lack of it – is beyond parody. Tonight's News at 10 featured reporter Wyre Davies finding yet another excuse for the BBC to return at length to the fall-out for Israelis from the three-month-old events of October 7, followed by him gravely intoning: 'The world's attention is still very much focused on the ongoing war, just over in Gaza.' Well, the BBC's attention certainly hasn't been focused on the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. Not a word tonight about Israel's continuing bombing of civilians, or the famine and disease it is inducing through its 'complete siege'. Or Israel's referral to the International Court of Justice, charged with carrying out a genocide. Instead we segued from an interview with the families of the hostages and a report on the 'We will dance again' campaign by the Nova festival organisers to Lyse Doucet analysing Israel's options for running Gaza on the 'day after'. Once again, the BBC made the Palestinians of Gaza – and the genocide they are enduring – invisible.

In the last few weeks we've heard statements from senior Ministers in the Israeli Government calling for the resettlement of the population of Gaza, and for Israeli settlements to be established in Gaza. That is the textbook definition of ethnic cleansing and must be called out.

I'm creating an "OnlyDans," where Dans get together to complain about being called "Dan the man, Daniel-san" and "Danny Boy" our whole lives.

Apparently it is bad for your career to say you are opposed to genocide. But fuck it. I am opposed to genocide. I am opposed to apartheid. I am opposed to children having limbs amputated without anesthesia. You absolute fucks

I always feel awful for the elves. You took the job 80 years ago to make some whimsical rocking horses, 4 parts tops. And now you're soldering an iPad motherboard with your arthritic, cinnamon-scented hands. A brutal gig.

This might be the best explanation I heard for "why Oct 7" and, surprisingly, it comes from Ami Ayalon, former head of the Shin Bet, Israel's secret service, and commander-in-chief of the Navy. Here what he says (this is the first video, there are a couple more below which you'll really want to watch): He says the "most important cause [of Oct 7]" was "the political paradigm", whereby Israel's policy was "divide and rule", meaning Israel "had to make sure Palestinians would not have a unified leadership" and could therefore always say "nobody to talk with, nothing to talk about". Concretely "in order to do it [Israel] had to make sure Hamas would go on controlling Gaza and the Palestinian authority the West bank", and incite them to "fight each other". This is why Israel "enhanced and assisted Hamas, transferred money, etc." As a result of all this Hamas "got the Palestinians' support" because "they became the only administration who fought against the Israeli occupation and for the purpose of Palestinian freedom" while Fatah and the Palestinian authority became perceived as "Israeli collaborators". In his assessment "between 70 to 80% of the Palestinians are supporting Hamas, only because Hamas is perceived as the one who fight for [their] freedom." He says Israel completely misunderstood the situation before Oct 7 because it measures "hardware" whilst Hamas measures "software", meaning that after every fight between Israel and the Palestinians, success for Israel is measured in "losses in human life, in military installations, in military infrastructure" whereas what Hamas measures is "the support of the people." As an illustration he says that in May 2021 - when there was fighting during 2 weeks and around 300 Palestinians were killed (to 17 on the Israeli side) - Israel thought that Hamas "suffered a huge loss and a huge military defeat" but from Hamas's standpoint it was "a huge victory" because this led to Hamas, for the first time, getting "more than 50% of the support from the Palestinian people."

The genocide of Palestinians is changing something inside of me. I don't know what it is. I don't have the words for it. It's probably just sorrow welling up but it's changing me. I don't think I was under any illusions yet I'll never look at so many things the same way again.