Israel Launches strike against Irans Nuclear Programme

If they are terrorists because their targets are the military of the state they are in, as you say. Will you agree that Israeli settlers, who this week we have seen attacking the IDF are also terrorists?

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-plans-enrich-sell-uranium-energy-minister-says-2025-01-13/

The Saudis will be enriching uranium.

I am familiar with the UK law that deems Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, maybe you can outline to me the relevant domestic laws that apply to the Israeli settlers?

it isn’t so much about opportunism, it is pragmatism.
Iceland were declared a terrorist state during the financial crisis to prevent one of their banks from transferring all of their assets from the uk to Iceland. Obviously the UK doesn’t consider Iceland to be a terrorist country, but that was the legislation under which a convenient law was passed. The same in this case, Palestine Action are a pretty abhorrent organisation and I have no doubt have very strong links to the abuse labour MPs were getting in the last election, so in order to ban them and curtail their activities, they have to become a proscribed organisation, because there is no other convenient legislation.

Here is the real problem. In a democratic country like the UK, you can elect a government to change the law, and the people have it fully within their power to do so. That they don't shows the people have chosen. Palestine Action are rightly proscribed as a terrorist organisation.

South Africa was far different - it wasn't a one person, one vote democracy. Iran is further different, a repressive regime with no democratic support. Being labelled a terrorist in a democratic country is far different from being labelled in apartheid South Africa or Iran.

Iranian Airspace in their Western and central regions has been closed.

No word I can find yet as to why.

There has been a coincidental rise in US military supply flights into Israel.

The US cutting even more supplies to Ukraine means that already allocated weapons must be going somewhere…

They may be stocking up for another attack on Iran, maybe a more sustained operation including the US and maybe more countries. I'd imagine letting Iran recover their missile launch capability would be a bad idea, now could be the time to finish the job.

I doubt it bit what I say is happening is there getting all their interceptors fully stocked up and more and all their planes getting rearmed big time.

I don't think Iceland were declared a terrorist state at the time, though they were rightly outraged at that label being thrown around. The reality was that the UK government of the time invoked preexisting legislation as a 'panic' measure in the financial crisis - yes, from the UK's perspective it was 'pragmatic' yet still incorrect. What's happening with PA is a whole other ball game in my view. This is a very deliberate attempt by Starmer to put the boot into the whole movement against the atrocities being committed by Israel - it's an off shoot of the general approach by them to weaponise anti-semitism to silence any critique of the actions of Netanyahu and his regime and of course people drawing attention to the West's complicity in the mass slaughter of the people of Gaza. The laughable fact is Starmer defended people (and won the case) who engaged in similar activites to PA while a QC. Using the Terrorism Act here is simply outrageous, it's an abuse of the legislation and is criminalising the right to protest, it's a very dangerous development and irrespective of any bias against the group or their activites it should be opposed by anyone who has an interest in democracy.

Briefly, (to hopefully avoid sacntion for taking this somewhat off topic)…..I suspected your response would be along these lines. The idea that a vote for a government is an endorsement of every aspect of their program or a defence of every piece of legislation on the statute books is risible, people vote on many issues. We saw in the last GE here that Palestine rated fairly low on the list of why people were voting the way they did however I suspect large numbers of government voters felt the government's response to that issue was relatively poor (polling would suggests as much) People can't just change governments at the drop of a hat either!

There is of course a difference between so-called democracies and non-democracies. Still, I would argue it's far worse for a so-called democratic country to go down the road that the UK is going down, particularly for the reasons the current UK government are doing it. It's not dissimilar to the establishment of Guantanamo Bay which was an appalling and egregious move by the Bush regime to deliberatley create a space of exception for the detention of Muslims and Asians on little or no evidence of wrongdoing - worse still to keep it open for decades!

Colombia is a further example - FARC is a proscribed terrorist organisation internationally because of the appalling activities they engage in - torture, kidnappings and murder etc - yet Colombian governments have done all of those things yet it's generally ignored.

Oh I agree with you. Now I am asking you if you support IDF soldiers individually destroying dialysis machines, ultra sound equipment etc?

An anti-war / anti-genocide movement vandalising military property or infrastructure scarcely seems to fall anywhere close to what could be called 'terrorism'. The word terrorism comes from the verb 'to terrorise', but these guys merely seem to be trying to disrupt the UK war effort and its attempts to aid Israel in carrying out its genocide.

More bad news for the Iranian regime. The full demise of its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, draws ever closer.

"The prospect of securing Hezbollah's disarmament - unimaginable two years ago - underlines the big shifts in the Middle East power balance to the detriment of Iran's allies across the region since the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah ally Hamas in October 2023."

It would have been difficult to imagine the effect that that pager bomb strike would have on the whole region in such a small period if time. It set off a chain reaction that has potentially reshaped the politics of the ME for years to come.

A great pospect for the Lebanese and Israeli people if this can be realised.

Full article below.

https://us.yahoo.com/news/lebanon-drafts-reply-us-demand-125725083.html

if only the solution was as simple as that

The regime change in Syria was also a big factor. Iran no longer has a land corridor to supply Hezbollah.

The pager strike was different level though. Hard to believe it actually happened.

From a psychological perspective must leave their enemies thinking what else are they capable of and what are they planning