Consortium News, Volume 31, Number 131 — Thursday, May 14, 2026
Not questioning Zionism has long been the entry ticket to the British political and media Establishment, but although public belief in the Zionist narrative is fatally damaged, prosecutions of pro-Palestinian activists continue.
Demonstration protesting Gaza genocide in Edinburgh outside the Scottish first minister’s office, July 19, 2025. (Photo from author’s website)
By Craig Murray
CraigMurray.org.uk
Unquestioning Zionism has for decades been the entry ticket to the British political and media Establishment.
Anybody who was not a fully certified and compliant Zionist would find their career limited – as Jeremy Corbyn, Alan Duncan, Robin Cook and David Mellor all found. Most others, of course, were never allowed to progress that far.
In the media there are any number of examples — Antoinette Lattouf, Emily Wilder, Katie Halper, Gabriele Nunziante and Sangita Myska — just from the top of my head. Lack of enthusiasm for Israel is career-destroying.
One consequence is that now, as the U.K. political system retches to try and vomit up a new prime minister, every single one of the contenders — Andy Burnham, Angela Rayner, Ed Miliband and Wes Streeting — has a long history of nailed-on, certified Zionism and relationship with both Israel and Labour Friends of Israel, and is a long-term recipient of Zionist lobby cash.
The media have spent the last several days since the local elections studiously ignoring the fact that support for genocide is a key factor in alienating the Labour Party’s traditional voting base — or when they do mention it, relating it only to Muslim voters. One thing we know for certain is that any probable new prime minister is not going to change Britain’s support for the genocidal zionist entity.
Zionism has long poisoned the central nervous system of the U.K. body politic.
For many years, due to its media control, this system worked seamlessly.
The media portrayed a benign image of Israel as a bastion of liberal democratic values under siege from corrupt and barbaric Arab peoples.
The genocide of Palestinians, which has been in progress almost 80 years, proceeded at a pace and by methods which rigorous media control made it possible to convince Western audiences was not really happening at all.
When a kickback against genocide came on Oct. 7, 2023, media gatekeeping made the declaration of condemnation of Hamas a ritual which had to be observed to ensure purity before you were permitted to express anything else at all.
The media united around false atrocity stories of the events of Oct. 7. Then they united around false Israeli narratives in which every Gazan hospital, clinic, school, public utility and eventually home was a secret Hamas missile base.
Zionist Narrative Fatally Damaged
At this point, something broke. There was a spectacular burst in public opinion. From being a lulling, soothing narrative of European civilisational superiority, the Zionist propaganda was revealed as obvious lies in the service of the very worst atrocities man could do to man (and child).
The media covered up the horrors and the Israeli government raced to stem the flow of images out of Gaza by murdering every journalist there, but public belief in the zionist narrative was fatally damaged.
The result of that was Western Zionist governments became scared of their own populations. In virtually every Western state, extreme authoritarian measures were adopted to limit free speech and punish pro-Palestinian protest.
This was followed by attempts to reinforce the exclusion from public life of non-Zionists by a new wave of accusations of anti-Semitism, reinforced by waves of false flag or agent provocateur organised “anti-Semitic incidents.”
Incidentally the Hasbara invented “Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyya” so-called terrorist group – actually an Israeli-operated Telegram account – was first “revealed” to the Western public by Joe Truzman of Israeli Washington-front organisation the Foundation for Defending Democracy (F.D.D.).
Nick Stewart of the F.D.D. has subsequently been added to the Witkoff-Kushner negotiating team with Iran and flew to Islamabad with them.
The Iranians have entirely sensibly refused to engage with this group as simply representing Israel.
That is where we are now, with extraordinary developments like the effort to jail and debar Rajiv Menon KC for contempt of court for what I had called the greatest legal speech I ever read, and the charging of thousands of peaceful citizens under terrorism laws for supporting Palestine Action.
[On Tuesday, human rights barrister Menon won his appeal against contempt of court proceedings leveled at him for a closing speech in the trial of Palestine Action activists.
On the same day, however, news outlets reported that a “terrorism connection” was added to the case, which the jury did not know about and which means four of the anti-genocide defendants found guilty in a retrial can be sentenced as terrorists.]
Those are but horrible symptoms of a wider malaise — and the fundamental shift is that the majority of the population, and above all of younger people, now realise that they are governed by a political and media class which acts in service of a Zionist project which is truly evil.
The billionaire class was already allied with the far right. As the appalling fall in living standards of ordinary people since the 2008 banking crisis has been caused by the massive and artificially wrought concentration of wealth which followed, the efforts to divert attention from the hoarders of wealth instead to scapegoat immigrants have entailed massive financial and corporate media backing for racist politicians.
Racism & Zionism Ally
This now syncs neatly with their need for support for Zionism. Zionism has found support through an easy alliance with the rampant Islamophobia that underpins much of the anti-migrant sentiment in the U.K. and rest of the Western world.
Israel’s core support now does not feel the need to hide the fact that Israel was always a deeply racist project.
Israel’s core supporters now glory in racist genocide, as the Tommy Robinson march this weekend will demonstrate and as the Israeli flags at Reform rallies show.
On last week’s election coverage on all U.K. television channels, every single time a Green representative came on they were immediately pushed to criticise Zack Polanski’s comments on the Golders Green incident — where a certified lunatic stabbed two Jewish men after stabbing a Muslim man.
I was sad — and somewhat shocked — to hear every single Green Party representative head immediately for the Jeremy Corbyn tactic of abject apology and condemnation of “anti-Semitism.”
Only Jenny Jones then pushed back against the conflation of criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
Jenny Jones, The Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb, member of the House of Lords. (Official Portrait, Wikipedia)
The exclusion of non-Zionists is still in force within the political and media class. It will remain in force until we change the political and media class.
Personally, the disconnect between the revulsion of the large majority of people of the Western world at the genocide in Gaza, and the people’s complete lack of political power to stop their uni-party political leaderships from supporting genocide, has fundamentally changed my view of politics.
I now fully accept that the change the Western world needs is revolutionary, not incremental.
The problem is those of the exploited classes who have reached breaking point, have so far been easily diverted down the track of racism and away from their true enemies. I fear that is a tactic not likely to fail soon.
We continue to fight with what weapons we have to hand. On May 27 at the Court of Session in Edinburgh we will continue our legal battle against the proscription of Palestine Action.
The May 27 hearing will be on our motion to suspend the proscription in Scotland pending the Scottish judicial review. Decent, caring people are still being dragged through the Scottish courts on potentially life-changing terrorism charges merely for expressing their support for Palestine Action’s attempts to stop genocide.
Many have been dragged to court again and again as their cases are continually put off, while the legal establishment havers over the proscription.
The Crown Office refuses to drop prosecutions and Police Scotland refuses to say it will not arrest people. Nobody has any certainty as to whether the law is being enforced or not.
Arrests and prosecutions appear entirely at executive whim – the very definition of arbitrary government. We seek to end this uncertainty.
The U.K. government is bringing a counter motion to sist (suspend) the judicial review pending the conclusion of the English proceedings — a straight Unionist argument that these things should be decided in London for the whole of the U.K.
I do hope you will come to the court in Edinburgh on May 27, both to witness the proceedings and to demonstrate outside and show that public revulsion at genocide is not going away, and is only increased by Israel’s illegal attacks on Iran and Lebanon.
I am afraid these proceedings are horribly expensive to keep the legal battle going. Again, please contribute if you can, but do not contribute if it causes you difficulty. If you know people who are able to afford to help and likely to be sympathetic, please do contact them and ask their assistance. We are trying to keep a lot of very good people out of prison.
You can donate here via Crowd Justice, which goes straight to the lawyers, or through CraigMurray.org.uk.
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010. His coverage is entirely dependent on reader support. Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Subscriptions to keep Craig Murray’s blog going are gratefully received. Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, Murray has set up new methods of payment including a GoFundMe appeal and a Patreon account.
This article is from CraigMurray.org.uk.
Views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Tags: Anti-Semitism Craig Murray Gaza Genocide Green Party Iran Israel Jenny Jones Palestine Action’ Tommy Robinson Zionism
Palestinian-Spanish activist Saif Abukeshek (centre) a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla, is escorted by prison service guards to a hearing at the District Court in Ashkelon, Israel, on Sunday, May 3, 20
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