Global Pulse

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  • How the fall of Starmer will reshape British policy on Israel

    How the fall of Starmer will reshape British policy on Israel

    As speculation builds over the race to replace Keir Starmer as British prime minister, one critical issue has so far been sidelined by political commentators: Starmer’s controversial handling of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and ongoing settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. For now, media coverage has fixated on candidate horse-trading and critiques of Starmer’s governing style, but political insiders agree this dynamic will shift dramatically once the leadership contest formally gets underway. When it does, Starmer’s approach to the Gaza crisis will emerge as one of the race’s defining flashpoints.

    Across the Labour Party, a growing consensus holds that whoever succeeds Starmer will need to adopt a far more uncompromising stance toward Israel, with potential policy shifts ranging from targeted sanctions on illegal West Bank settlements and a ban on settlement goods to sweeping, state-level sanctions against Israel itself. Senior Labour figures have already framed the issue as a critical electoral and moral turning point for the party. “Labour’s refusal to properly oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza is one of the key issues that has appalled huge numbers of former Labour voters and driven them away from the party,” Labour MP Richard Burgon told Middle East Eye. Fellow MP Kim Johnson echoed that sentiment, noting: “Any future leader must demonstrate a clear willingness to challenge the Israeli government over the continued violence in Gaza and illegal settlement expansion in the West Bank. I will be looking closely at where any future leader stands on these issues. This includes their willingness to take tough, principled action and their independence from foreign interests in the form of financial backing.”

    The field of likely contenders has begun to take shape, with former Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband all tipped as potential candidates. Currently, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has emerged as the early frontrunner, should he win the upcoming by-election in Makerfield — a seat vacated by former Starmer ally Josh Simons. Burnham holds overwhelming popularity among Labour’s grassroots membership, but his record on Israel and Middle East policy is nuanced.

    As a regional mayor, Burnham has not shaped national Labour policy on the conflict, and he has never positioned himself as a strident pro-Palestine advocate in the mold of former leader Jeremy Corbyn. He joined Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) in 2015, during his first unsuccessful run for the party leadership, when he stated his first overseas visit as leader would be to Israel and described the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement as “spiteful.” Yet even then, Burnham criticized Israeli leadership, calling Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2015 re-election “depressing” and noting that Palestine would require increased international support. After the October 7 2023 Hamas attack, Burnham broke sharply with Starmer’s pro-Israel line, calling for an immediate ceasefire just weeks into the war — at a time when Labour MPs were ordered not to support parliamentary ceasefire votes. He has since cited lessons from the 2003 Iraq War, which he voted for as a young MP, to justify his stance: “the US-UK action resulted in huge harm to innocent civilians,” he has said, adding that those experiences shaped his opposition to the Gaza campaign. Most analysts agree that as prime minister, Burnham would almost certainly toughen Britain’s stance on Israeli violations of international law.

    Ed Miliband, Labour leader between 2010 and 2015, has also signaled he would take a harder line than Starmer. Like Burnham, Miliband has long identified as a friend of Israel and opposed boycott campaigns, but he broke with Conservative government policy during the 2014 Israeli bombing of Gaza, which killed more than 1,400 Palestinian civilians. He sharply criticized then-Prime Minister David Cameron’s “inexplicable silence” on “the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians caused by Israel’s military action,” calling Cameron’s position outright wrong. That same year, Miliband backed unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood, a policy rejected by the Tories. Within Starmer’s cabinet, sources confirm Miliband was a leading voice pushing Starmer to formally recognize a Palestinian state, a step Starmer ultimately took in September 2025. He also successfully lobbied Starmer privately to block the U.S. from using British bases to strike Iran in February 2026, before Starmer partially reversed his decision. For her part, Angela Rayner has been publicly tied to Starmer’s Gaza position as deputy prime minister, but has a longstanding record of supporting Palestinian statehood recognition.

    The most politically ambiguous contender is Wes Streeting, whose stance on the issue has shifted dramatically in recent years. A longstanding member of LFI who meets regularly with the group in Westminster, Streeting has received more than £20,000 in donations between 2021 and 2025 from Trevor Chinn, a 90-year-old philanthropist awarded the Israeli Presidential Medal of Honour in 2024 for his service to the state. Immediately after October 7, Streeting followed the official Labour line, repeating Israel’s unsubstantiated claim that Hamas used civilians as human shells and refused to back a ceasefire. In January 2024, he even dismissed South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice as a “distraction” from diplomatic efforts.

    But in recent months, Streeting has rebranded himself as a critic of Israel. Anonymous Labour sources claim he privately pushed Starmer for a more pro-Palestinian stance while serving in cabinet. Last September, he stated that Israel’s actions in Gaza were “leading Israel to pariah status.” Then in February 2026, private text correspondence between Streeting and former U.S. ambassador Peter Mandelson was leaked — a move multiple Labour sources believe Streeting orchestrated to boost his leadership prospects. In the July 2025 texts, Streeting warned he could “become toast at the next election” in his marginal Ilford North seat, admitting: “Israel is committing war crimes before our eyes … the Israeli government talks the language of ethnic cleansing, and I have met with our own medics out there who describe the most chilling and distressing scenes of calculated brutality against women and children.” He called Israel a rogue state, arguing: “Let them pay the price as pariahs with sanctions applied to the state, not just a few ministers.”

    Critics have slammed Streeting for hypocrisy, noting he remained in a cabinet that cooperated with Israel even while holding these private beliefs. But the leak itself signals a key political shift: Streeting calculates that taking a hard line against Israel will benefit his campaign, a calculation rooted in his own 2024 election experience, where he held Ilford North by fewer than 600 votes against a pro-Palestine independent challenger.

    This shift reflects broader pressure across the party: grassroots Labour members are far more critical of Israel than the parliamentary party, with a June 2025 poll finding nine out of ten rank-and-file members believe the UK should take a much harder line against Israel than the current government. Once the contest begins, all candidates will face intense pressure from members to publicly address Starmer’s handling of Gaza, a record marked by inconsistency and criticism from the left.

    Under Starmer, the UK has conducted at least 518 spy flights over Gaza during Israel’s campaign, sharing intelligence with Israel despite government claims the flights were solely for locating hostages. The Starmer government has also permitted British dual nationals to serve in the Israeli military, and approved $169 million in military exports to Israel in the three months after imposing a partial arms embargo — more than the entire volume of military exports approved by the Conservative government between 2020 and 2023. While Starmer broke with previous Tory policy by dropping the UK’s objection to International Criminal Court jurisdiction over Israel, imposing a partial arms embargo, and sanctioning far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, he has walked back repeated attempts to label Israeli actions a breach of international law, refused to accuse Israel of war crimes, and allowed the U.S. to use British bases for 2026 strikes on Iran, a move legal experts describe as illegal. Domestically, Starmer’s government outlawed pro-Palestine direct action group Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, arresting thousands of supporters — including many elderly activists — despite a High Court ruling that the ban was unlawful.

    All of these policies will be put to the test during the leadership contest, with candidates forced to answer tough questions: Does Israel qualify as an apartheid state? Has it committed genocide in Gaza? Will they continue to support Labour Friends of Israel? Will they ban settlement goods, impose a full arms embargo, reverse the Palestine Action ban, or block U.S. use of British bases for future strikes against Iran?

    These questions are not just internal party business. Labour faces growing electoral pressure from the left from the Green Party, which has positioned itself as the leading UK political voice opposing British support for Israel and participation in U.S.-led Middle East wars. Leading pollster John Curtice noted after recent local elections that the Greens have done far more damage to Labour’s vote share than the right-wing Reform Party, with Gaza a top driver of that defection.

    The next Labour leader will face a clear choice: double down on Starmer’s strategy of courting right-leaning voters, or shift left to recoup disaffected voters lost to the Greens by returning to Labour’s historic roots of supporting marginalized and occupied populations. Even candidates with long pro-Israel records like Streeting now recognize that taking a harder line on Israel is politically beneficial, as his leaked texts make clear.

    The end result is inevitable: whoever wins the contest will rewrite Britain’s Israel policy. Even if Starmer survives his current leadership crisis, he will likely be forced to adjust his stance to shore up support from the party’s left. For Labour, a break from Starmer’s approach is not just morally necessary, it is politically smart, argues Burgon: “Sanctioning Israel to bring the government into line with its legal obligations under international law would not only be the right thing to do, it would also be popular. And if Labour under a new leader wants to convince people it has genuinely changed, then such a clear break with the failures of the Starmer era on Gaza will be essential.”

  • Brutal raid on woman’s birthday party highlights rise of Russian vigilante group

    Brutal raid on woman’s birthday party highlights rise of Russian vigilante group

    It was meant to be a celebration: Katya, a 30-year-old events organizer from the northern Russian city of Arkhangelsk, was moments away from blowing out the candles on her birthday cake at a rented nightclub when the attackers arrived. Dressed in masks, the group stormed the venue, launching a violent physical and verbal assault on Katya and her guests. “They called us faggots and lesbians. I could hear violence from every corner,” Katya recalled in an interview with BBC World Service’s investigative team. Her own mother, she added, was forced to get down on all fours during the attack.

    The raid was not the work of random thugs. It was coordinated by Russkaya Obshina, the largest and most active nationalist vigilante network in Russia, which operates to advance President Vladimir Putin’s political agenda of erasing Western liberal influences and cementing so-called traditional family values across the country. In a striking pattern documented by the investigation, local law enforcement officers joined the vigilantes during the operation.

    The group claimed the raid was carried out to search for evidence of illegal LGBT “propaganda,” a criminalized offense under Russian law. No such evidence was ever found, but Katya was still taken into custody for interrogation. Nine months after the attack, she was convicted of blasphemy, with the prosecution pointing to a single red neon light shaped like a crucifix hanging on the nightclub wall as evidence of her crime. She was sentenced to 200 hours of court-ordered community service.

    During her interrogation, Katya says a law enforcement officer told her she did not align with traditional Russian values and that there was “something wrong with her.” The case was amplified by local media and the group’s social media channels, triggering waves of severe online harassment that have left Katya living in constant fear. “For 10 years, I lived in a certain rhythm. It made me happy, it was my life. What do you feel when a part of you is taken away? You feel loss,” she told the BBC. Despite the risk of further targeting, Katya chose to share her story to expose the group’s tactics.

    Over 12 months of reporting, the BBC World Service spoke to six current and former members of Russkaya Obshina, as well as dozens of people harmed by the group’s actions. The investigation, which also incorporated analysis of more than 21,000 social media posts from the group’s public channels between 2020 and 2025, paints a clear picture of a rapidly expanding movement of ideologically driven nationalist and religious activists who carry out coordinated raids on private businesses, event venues, migrant communities, abortion clinics and other spaces they claim violate their strict traditional worldview. After launching their raids, the group pressures law enforcement to prosecute their targets.

    Migrants are among the group’s most frequent targets: the BBC’s analysis found that one in four of the group’s social media posts focus on migrants, and often include virulent racist language. In videos posted online, group members can be seen confronting migrants at their workplaces and public spaces, publicly accusing them of criminal activity.

    When contacted by the BBC for comment, Russkaya Obshina did not directly respond to the investigation’s specific claims, instead disputing the BBC’s ability to contact current and former members. “Even though Russkaya Obshina is an informal community of people, with no legal entity and no formal membership, the BBC’s great thinkers have somehow ‘found’ former and current members of the Obshina… If you grab anyone off the street and call them a member of the Obshina, you can put any nonsense you like into their mouth,” the group said in a social media post addressing the investigation.

    One former member, a wounded ex-soldier who left the group just two months before the BBC’s interview and asked to be identified only as Dimitry, fits the profile of many members. After returning from the front lines in Ukraine, he said he joined the group to find a new sense of purpose, channeling his military training into what he frames as defending Russian culture from “foreign intrusion.” “People from other cultures come in and Russkaya Obshina responds like an antibody, stopping them harming the organism. You could say Russkaya Obshina is like a kind of doctor,” he explained.

    The group has received explicit backing from influential Russian institutions. Last year, the Russian Orthodox Church, a close political ally of the Putin government, formally advised all of its bishops to build partnerships with Russkaya Obshina, codifying existing informal ties and granting the unregistered vigilante group greater public legitimacy.

    Political analysts broadly agree that the group could not operate at its current scale without implicit approval from the Kremlin. For years, the Russian government has framed the country as a guardian of traditional conservative values in contrast to Western liberalism, a policy that hardened dramatically after Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In November 2022, Putin signed a formal decree dedicated to preserving “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values” nationwide. Russkaya Obshina has been a vocal supporter of the war in Ukraine, and in December 2024, the group formed a joint military unit deployed to the front lines alongside the far-right Espanola brigade, which has already been sanctioned by the UK government.

    Contrary to the group’s claims that it operates without formal financial backing, documents reviewed by the BBC’s investigative unit BBC Eye link the network to funding from two high-profile figures with close ties to the Kremlin, routed through multiple charitable foundations. The first major funder identified in the documents is a foundation run by Igor Khudokormov, a Russian sugar magnate whose agriculture conglomerate Prodimex is a leading Russian food producer and a major trading partner with the European Union, according to U.S. trade data. Khudokormov has close personal ties to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Patrushev, son of former Federal Security Service director Nikolai Patrushev, a core member of Putin’s inner circle.

    Tom Keatinge, a finance and security expert at the UK-based Royal United Services Institute, said that Khudokormov’s backing of a group engaged in human rights abuses and military activity in Ukraine raises urgent questions for European companies and governments that trade with his firm. “Do you want… a Russian company providing critical materials into the food chain, especially [one run by someone]… funding the sort of activity he’s funding? That’s a question governments and companies have to answer,” Keatinge said. Khudokormov did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

    The second funder named in the documents is Sergei Mikheev, a prominent pro-Kremlin media commentator who has reportedly collaborated with the Kremlin and Russian intelligence on election campaigns across former Soviet states. Mikheev denied the claim, telling the BBC, “The charitable foundation I established, the ‘Sergei Mikheev Charity Foundation,’ has never transferred any funds to Russkaya Obshina. Any documents allegedly confirming this are fake.”

    The BBC’s analysis of the group’s social media content found that the first recorded raid was carried out in May 2023. Between that date and the end of 2025, the group documented more than 900 raids across Russia, with local law enforcement joining roughly 300 of those operations. Reporters note the total number is almost certainly an undercount, as the group does not publicize all of its activity on public channels. To map the activity of Russian nationalist groups, the BBC built a custom multi-agent AI system, which cross-analyzed social media content from more than 10 similar nationalist networks, finding that Russkaya Obshina maintains a far larger street-level presence than any comparable group.

    While Russkaya Obshina has attempted to frame itself as part of Russia’s official network of registered civilian patrol groups that assist police with public order, the group remains unregistered, despite police participation in its raids. Sergei Ognerubov, who leads a registered civilian patrol in St. Petersburg that has allowed some Russkaya Obshina members to join his organization, criticized the group for its unregulated, extralegal tactics. “If you want to tackle migration, join us and do it legally. Simply running into some market in masks isn’t fighting migration – that’s more like petty hooliganism,” he said.

    Alexander Verkhovsky, a Moscow-based researcher focused on Russia’s far right, noted that the group’s extralegal intimidation tactics themselves violate Russian law, despite its claims to uphold order. “Russkaya Obshina – which claims to uphold law and order – mainly operates through intimidation which is itself illegal” in this context, he said.

    In response to the BBC’s investigation, the Russian Embassy in London defended the group, saying “The broad public support [Russkaya Obshina] enjoys reflects the… growth of interest in national culture and historical traditions” and “it would appear that… civic engagement in Russia provokes irritation among those who seek to denigrate and discredit our country.”

    For Katya, the consequences of the raid have been irreversible. She has stopped hosting the alternative community events that defined her career and personal life for a decade, and her daily routine remains upended by the harassment and conviction. Today, she lives with constant fear of further targeting, but remains one of the few voices willing to publicly speak out about the vigilante network’s growing power.

  • Trump insists US-China relations are in a good place despite differences as he wraps up Beijing trip

    Trump insists US-China relations are in a good place despite differences as he wraps up Beijing trip

    BEIJING – As U.S. President Donald Trump concluded his fast-paced diplomatic visit to China on Friday, he remained steadfast in his public framing that relations between the world’s two largest economies are strong and improving, even as deep, unresolved divisions over flashpoint issues from Taiwan to the Iran conflict continue to test bilateral ties.

    On his final day in the Chinese capital, Trump took to social media to claim that Chinese President Xi Jinping had praised his “tremendous successes” in office. He also sought to clarify Xi’s recent comment describing the U.S. as a potentially declining power, arguing the remark was directed exclusively at his predecessor Joe Biden, not his own administration.

    Yet Trump’s upbeat assessment of the U.S.-China relationship runs headlong into tangible disagreements that dominated closed-door negotiations this week, with no sign of breakthrough on the most contentious items on the agenda.

    ### Taiwan: Core Interest Sparks Sharp Warnings
    The Taiwan question emerged as the most sensitive topic of this week’s talks, with Chinese officials confirming that Xi privately warned Trump that mishandling differences over the self-governing island could push the two global powers into open confrontation.

    For Beijing, Taiwan has long been framed as an non-negotiable core national interest, and Chinese leaders have ramped up this messaging in recent weeks amid growing defense cooperation between Washington and Taipei. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who joined the U.S. delegation for negotiations, emphasized that longstanding U.S. policy toward Taiwan remains unchanged, warning that any attempt to seize the island by force would be a catastrophic error, while also noting that Beijing’s tough rhetoric on the issue follows longstanding diplomatic norms.

    The current state of play on Taiwan exposes conflicting strands of Trump’s policy toward the island. In December, his administration approved a record $11 billion arms package for Taiwan – the largest ever offered to the democracy – but the deal has yet to be implemented, and Trump has publicly questioned the value of U.S. security commitments to Taipei. He has complained that Taiwan “stole” the U.S. semiconductor industry and repeatedly demanded the island pay full cost for American military protection, while using tariff threats and incentives inherited from the Biden administration to pressure Taipei into committing to massive new investments in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and multi-billion dollar purchases of American crude oil and liquefied natural gas. These inconsistent stances have fueled widespread speculation that Trump could be willing to scale back U.S. support for Taiwan in exchange for concessions on other issues.

    Ma Chun-wei, a specialist in cross-strait relations at Taiwan’s Tamkang University, explained that growing defense ties between Washington and Taipei have directly prompted Beijing’s harder line on the issue. “For Xi Jinping, he must show that the Taiwan issue is in China’s hands. He must demonstrate this image, or else he would be criticized,” Ma noted.

    ### The Iran Conflict: Disagreement Over Global Energy Security
    The ongoing war in Iran, which has effectively closed the critical Strait of Hormuz chokepoint for global oil trade, also featured prominently in Thursday’s two-hour talks between the two leaders at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.

    Trump told Fox News in an interview that both he and Xi agreed the Strait of Hormuz – which carried roughly 20% of the world’s global oil supplies before the war began in February – must be reopened to meet global energy demand. Trump claimed that Xi privately offered to mediate to help end the conflict, though details of any potential Chinese role remain unclear, particularly given Beijing’s longstanding strategic partnership with Tehran. The U.S. has repeatedly pressed China to use its unique leverage as Iran’s largest trading partner to pressure Tehran into negotiating an end to the war, but Beijing has shown little public willingness to take steps that would damage its relationship with the Iranian government.

    “He’d like to see the Hormuz Strait open,” Trump said of Xi. “He said if I can be of any help whatsoever, I would like to help.” Trump added that Xi also opposes the imposition of tolls on ships transiting the strait and signaled China could increase purchases of American oil to reduce its reliance on Gulf energy supplies in the future.

    Just days before arriving in Beijing, Trump downplayed the urgency of resolving the Iran conflict during talks with Xi, telling reporters “we have Iran very much under control” and framing the issue as a lower priority. But senior administration officials struck a different tone ahead of the meetings, arguing that it is directly in China’s economic interest to help end the war. Rubio noted that the conflict has driven up global energy prices, slowing consumer demand around the world and leading to fewer purchases of Chinese goods, which harms China’s export-driven economy. While Beijing has so far cushioned the impact of the energy crisis using its strategic oil reserves, economists warn that that buffer is not unlimited, and prolonged disruption to global energy markets could cause significant damage to Chinese economic growth.

    On another longstanding point of friction, the White House still maintains that China could do more to crack down on the flow of Chinese-made precursor chemicals to Mexican drug cartels, which are used to produce illicit fentanyl that has caused a public health crisis across thousands of American communities.

    ### Trade and Business: Expectations of Potential Deals Ahead of Departure
    Heading into the visit, White House officials signaled that Trump would not conclude the trip without tangible progress on trade, suggesting new announcements could be coming before his departure for Washington. The U.S. side is pushing for formal Chinese commitments to increase purchases of American soybeans and beef, while Trump confirmed Friday that Xi had indicated China would move forward with a purchase of 200 Boeing commercial jets.

    According to a White House readout of Thursday’s talks, the two leaders discussed expanding Chinese agricultural imports from the U.S. and exploring opportunities for reciprocal investment expansion. The Trump administration is also pushing to establish a new bilateral Board of Trade to address ongoing commercial disputes between the two countries.

    Chinese Premier Li Qiang struck a conciliatory tone during separate talks with American business leaders, including Elon Musk of Tesla, Tim Cook of Apple and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang – all of whom joined Trump’s delegation for the visit. “China and the United States have been able to maintain frank and smooth dialogue and communication and actively safeguard a stable and healthy bilateral relationship” despite global upheaval, Li said.

    As Friday wraps up, Trump and Xi are scheduled for additional informal talks at Xi’s official Beijing residence before the U.S. president departs for the return trip to Washington, with no clear sign that the two sides have bridged the deep divides that continue to shape the world’s most important bilateral relationship.

  • LGBTQ campaigners denounce Eurovision ‘pinkwashing’ ahead of final

    LGBTQ campaigners denounce Eurovision ‘pinkwashing’ ahead of final

    As the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest prepares to crown its winner in Saturday’s grand final in Vienna, the long-running European music spectacle has been plunged into unprecedented controversy, with queer activists leading global calls to boycott the event over what they label deliberate “pinkwashing” of Israeli state violence against Palestinians.

    The controversy traces back to December 2024, when the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Eurovision’s governing body, voted to allow Israel to compete in this year’s contest. That decision has sparked sustained protests across Europe, from mass demonstrations on the streets of host city Vienna to the expulsions of pro-Palestine campaigners who disrupted live shows, and loud public booing and chants of “stop the genocide” during Israel’s qualifying performance. Five countries — Spain, Ireland, Iceland, Slovenia and the Netherlands — have already withdrawn from the contest entirely in protest, and multiple national public broadcasters have refused to air Saturday’s final.

    A flashpoint for queer criticism came in Thursday’s live semi-final broadcast, which included a pre-taped segment celebrating the contest’s long history of inclusivity for the LGBTQ+ community, a demographic that has long formed one of Eurovision’s core global audiences. For activists, the segment laid bare what they call the EBU and Israel’s coordinated campaign of reputation laundering: using the language of queer inclusivity to distract from ongoing military violence against Palestinians.

    Omar Khatib, a queer Palestinian writer and organiser based in Jerusalem, framed the moment as a clear moral test for global audiences. “Either you are against genocide and against the mass killing of Palestinians, or you are willing to normalise and coexist with it,” Khatib told Middle East Eye. He argued that the myth of Eurovision’s political neutrality no longer holds up, noting that the event has become a stage where “liberalism, nationalism and colonialism intersect under the language of diversity and inclusion.” For queer Palestinian organizers, Khatib added, Israel’s participation is not just a minor entry in a music contest: it is part of a broader state propaganda push that weaponizes queer identity to legitimize state violence against Palestinian people.

    In response to the EBU’s decision, thousands of LGBTQ+ viewers who have watched Eurovision for decades are now breaking that long-held habit and boycotting Saturday’s final. Queers for Palestine, a UK-based activist group that held a pro-Palestine symposium in London last month, is urging queer viewers to skip the broadcast and instead join the queer contingent at London’s annual Nakba Day demonstration, which commemorates the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the 1948 creation of the State of Israel. For those who stay home, group member Tara suggests organizing local actions: asking local queer venues to cancel their Eurovision screenings, or distributing educational leaflets to attendees explaining how the event enables what activists call Israeli settler-colonialism and genocide.

    “Find those around you who want more from their queerness than annual shows of opulence dripping with blood, and set your sights again on what queerness is really all about: liberation,” Tara said. Addressing claims of hypocrisy from pro-Israel commentators, who often point to anti-LGBTQ+ policies from Palestinian political groups like Hamas, Tara pushed back on the false binary. “As queer activists, we love freedom and dignity for everyone and we want to contribute to the end of this oppression,” she said. “We, of course, also support our queer Palestinian friends and siblings when they struggle against the violence of patriarchy in their own society, as all queer people do everywhere in the world… there is quite obviously nothing hypocritical about this.”

    Mainstream reporting has backed up activists’ pinkwashing claims: The New York Times revealed earlier this week that Israel has spent more than $1 million on its Eurovision participation, framing the contest as a key soft power tool to repair the country’s damaged international reputation and rally global support amid widespread condemnation of its military operations in occupied Palestinian territories. Records show Israel launched this formal promotional campaign back in 2018, as criticism of its participation grew alongside its ongoing settlement expansion and military operations.

    For decades, Israel has positioned itself as a regional LGBTQ+ haven compared to neighboring countries: same-sex relations and same-sex adoption are legal in the country, and Tel Aviv has cultivated a global reputation as a leading queer travel and culture hub. But that reputation has long been challenged by critics, who note that same-sex marriage remains unlegalized in Israel, that powerful Jewish fundamentalist groups routinely push back against LGBTQ+ rights advances, and that a 2025 Pew Research Center survey found 47 percent of Israelis view homosexuality as morally unacceptable. Most notably, queer Palestinians have documented being targeted by Israeli intelligence, who routinely blackmail queer Palestinians into collaborating with Israeli occupation forces.

    The boycott campaign has drawn widespread support from artists across the globe, with more than 2,000 musicians signing the “No Music For Genocide” petition calling for a full boycott of the 2026 contest. UK feminist punk band Big Joanie, which centers the experiences of Black and queer women in its work, was one of those signatories. Lead singer Stephanie Phillips said the desire to enjoy a beloved cultural event cannot override the reality of violence facing Palestinians. “I think there is definitely merit for an accusation of pinkwashing,” she said. “While I fully understand that Eurovision means a lot to the LGBTQ+ community, I also think it does not cancel out the reality that many Palestinians are living right now – there are LGBTQ+ Palestinians as well and I doubt they feel represented or seen by the choices of Eurovision.” Phillips noted that the band’s audience has been overwhelmingly supportive of their pro-Palestine stance, with only one negative incident after a show in Cologne, Germany, where an attendee aggressively confronted her for dedicating a song to the Palestinian people.

    The controversy has already had a measurable impact on the contest’s global reach. Typically, Eurovision’s 25-country grand final draws more than 150 million viewers worldwide, but this year’s final is on track to be the least-watched in the event’s history. Alongside the five withdrawing countries, Spanish public television has already confirmed it will not air the final, and Slovenian and Irish public broadcasters have also pulled their broadcasts. Semi-final viewership in countries still airing the contest has already slumped sharply from previous years. As final rehearsals wrapped up in Vienna on Friday, a parallel pro-Palestine event featuring speeches and a concert was held in the city center, drawing hundreds of attendees.

    Even former contest winners have sounded the alarm over the long-term damage the controversy has done to Eurovision’s reputation as a unifying cultural event. Emmelie de Forest, the Danish singer who won the 2013 contest, told Middle East Eye that the EBU’s decision has left her heartbroken. “I think it has already done a lot of damage to Eurovision, and that makes me genuinely sad to say because the contest has been such a meaningful part of my life,” she said. “I sadly think the contest is creating more division than unity. The controversy surrounding Israel’s participation, the backlash from fans and artists, the countries withdrawing and the growing distrust toward the EBU have all fundamentally changed the atmosphere around Eurovision.”

  • UK Eurovision act: The BBC gave me a stress test to check I could cope under pressure

    UK Eurovision act: The BBC gave me a stress test to check I could cope under pressure

    As the 70th Eurovision Song Contest prepares to crown its 2026 winner in Vienna this Saturday, all eyes are turning to the United Kingdom’s unorthodox representative: inventor and cult musician Sam Battle, better known by his stage name Look Mum No Computer. Where many contestants enter the global competition hungry for a win, Battle brings a laid-back, devil-may-care attitude that defies the typical pressure of Eurovision’s spotlight.

    With bookmakers placing Battle at 150/1 odds of taking home the trophy, the 37-year-old creative says he is fully prepared for any outcome, leaning into the adage that confidence means being comfortable with losing. “It could go well or completely wrong – I’m just here for the ride,” he says. Even in the worst-case scenario of a zero-point finish, he has already leaned into the joke, joking that he’s got a “Look mum, no points” t-shirt ready to go.

    For Battle, Eurovision is far from a make-or-break career milestone. Long before he was tapped to represent the UK, he had built a thriving, eccentric creative career centered on his passion for repurposed audio technology. A cult favorite in experimental electro-pop circles, he is known for building functional synthesisers out of unexpected objects ranging from old bicycles to retro Speak-and-Spell machines. His YouTube channel boasts 700,000 loyal subscribers who tune in to watch his madcap projects: everything from modifying vintage cars to restoring decaying 19th-century church organs, all delivered with the manic, infectious energy that has drawn comparisons to Back to the Future’s eccentric inventor Doc Brown. Off-camera, Battle runs a unique museum in Ramsgate, Kent, dedicated to restoring and exhibiting forgotten vintage audio gear. Just four weeks before the Eurovision grand final, he added a new role to his packed resume: first-time dad to a baby boy named Max.

    What many fans don’t know is that Battle’s Eurovision journey started as a random pub joke with a friend. “We were sitting in a pub saying, wouldn’t it be hilarious if we tried to get into Eurovision?” he recalls. The throwaway joke quickly snowballed: his manager emailed the BBC to ask about the application process, and producers, intrigued by Battle’s one-of-a-kind persona, asked him to submit an original track.

    Battle agreed to join a songwriting writing camp on one non-negotiable condition: he had to be allowed to bring Kosmo, his custom-built synthesiser and drum machine that requires six separate flight cases to transport. It was a casual moment while moving furniture that ultimately gave birth to his entry: a cheeky, 1980s-inspired pop anthem titled *Eins, Zwei, Drei*. As he shifted a sofa to make space for Kosmo, he counted out “Eins, Zwei, Drei” to coordinate the lift – and the team immediately knew they had their song title. Twelve hours later, the track was finished: a playful, high-energy number about quitting a boring office job to take a spontaneous mini-break in Germany. “We all thought it would never get picked,” Battle says. The very next morning, the BBC called to say they loved the track’s zany, unapologetic charm, and after a final audition to confirm he could perform live, Battle was officially named the UK’s 2026 representative.

    During rehearsals in Vienna, Battle’s boundless curiosity for all things mechanical was on full display during a visit to the city’s Museum of Science and Technology, where he wandered through an exhibition of early synthesisers and mechanical instruments like a kid let loose in a candy factory. He impressed museum staff with his deep, encyclopedic knowledge of the obscure gear, pointing out the Mellotron organ that created the iconic texture on The Beatles’ *Strawberry Fields Forever*, and demonstrating the Roland CR-78 drum machine that kicks off Blondie’s *Heart of Glass*. “He’d be a fantastic tour guide – he knows more about these machines than we do,” the museum’s curator said. It took a spontaneous detour to a Eurovision karaoke booth, where Battle ripped through a falsetto version of ABBA’s *Waterloo* and did the full choreography for 2025’s viral hit *Espresso Macchiato*, before the pair could sit down to discuss his upcoming performance.

    Battle is the first to admit he’s no polished Eurovision performer: “I’m literally not a dancer. I’ve got two left feet,” he laughs, but says he’s fully embracing the challenge. His performance, choreographed by Fredrik “Benke” Rydman – the creative mind behind 2024 winner Nemo’s winning staging – leans into Battle’s hyperactive, chaotic energy. The set opens with Battle trapped in the monotony of a soul-crushing office job, before he breaks free and transforms the drab set into a flashing, buzzing electronic carnival, with dancers wearing fur-lined television sets as headgear. Battle built most of the stage props himself, including oversized custom synth panels, drilling hundreds of holes in the process. He had to scrap one idea – adding a real car to the set – when he learned the stage’s glass LED floor had a strict 500kg weight limit for all props.

    Battle is well aware of the UK’s poor recent track record at Eurovision: outside of Sam Ryder’s surprise second-place finish in 2022, the UK has not placed in the top 10 for more than 15 years, and earned exactly zero points in both 2024 and 2025. The BBC, he says, prepared him for the potential public scrutiny that comes with the role, even putting him through a stress test to make sure he could handle the pressure.

    Right now, the only thing keeping him up at night is the fear he’ll trip on stage and embarrass himself. Still, when pressed, he admits there’s a small part of him hoping the audience connects with his unconventional act. “What we’re doing is Marmite – you either love it or hate it – but I think there’s a slot open for our sort of thing,” he says.

    But even if the contest doesn’t go his way, Battle has already lined up his next priority: immediately after the grand final wraps up Saturday night, he’s flying straight home to resume his new favorite job: changing nappies for his newborn son Max. For Sam Battle, no matter what the scoreboard says, Eurovision is already a win.

  • Anas al-Tikriti, British-Iraqi founder of Cordoba, denied entry to Canada

    Anas al-Tikriti, British-Iraqi founder of Cordoba, denied entry to Canada

    A high-profile British-Iraqi interfaith activist was turned away from Canadian soil and detained for 11 hours at Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport earlier this week, in a move that has sparked intense debate over freedom of speech and political pressure shaping Canadian border policy. Anas al-Tikriti, founder of the London-based Cordoba Foundation, an organization dedicated to fostering cross-cultural dialogue between Western nations and Muslim communities, had been scheduled to address a national convention hosted by the Muslim Association of Canada in Toronto between May 16 and 18 before his entry was blocked. He was ultimately deported back to London following hours of questioning by Canadian border officials. In a formal statement released after his deportation, al-Tikriti described his detention as a prolonged, unfocused process marked by repetitive questioning that mirrored queries he had already completed on his Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) application form. Among the repeated questions, he said, was what he called the absurd and demeaning inquiry asking if he had ever been linked to narcotics networks, terrorist organizations or criminal groups. Al-Tikriti added that at no point did officials ask to discuss his planned remarks at the convention, his academic or political views, or the purpose of his visit. When he volunteered to provide additional context or clarification for his travel, the overseeing officer explicitly declined to hear any further information. “It was clear to me within the first three hours that they had no intention of allowing me into Canada, and that the hours that followed were a search for a pretext,” al-Tikriti said in his statement. By the afternoon of his arrival, officials had settled on a justification for the denial: they claimed al-Tikriti had provided false information on his ETA application when he stated he had never been refused a visa by another country, pointing to a 2023 U.S. visa refusal as evidence of the inaccuracy. Al-Tikriti has strongly pushed back on this claim, stating unequivocally that he did not intentionally misstate his travel history on the form. The activist founded the Cordoba Foundation in 2005, and the organization works to build intercultural dialogue and provides strategic and security policy advice to political stakeholders working on Middle East issues. The designation has long been a point of controversy: in 2014, the United Arab Emirates, where al-Tikriti spent his adolescence and early adulthood, labeled the Cordoba Foundation as a terrorist organization – a classification that rights advocates argue is politically motivated. Al-Tikriti has also been targeted by state surveillance in the past: in 2021, forensic analysts confirmed his personal iPhone had been compromised by Pegasus, the powerful military-grade spyware developed by Israeli cybersecurity firm NSO Group, with evidence pointing to the UAE as the actor behind the hack. The Muslim Association of Britain has publicly linked the Canadian decision to ongoing political pressure around the Israel-Palestine conflict, arguing the entry ban was pushed by bad-faith actors seeking to silence public criticism of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which critics have labeled a genocide. The organization added that the incident raises serious, troubling questions about the state of free speech in Canada, and the growing trend of targeting activists who publicly advocate for Palestinian human rights. Al-Tikriti echoed that sentiment in his statement, saying he would have respected Canadian authorities more if they had been transparent about the real reason for his denial. “I would, frankly, have had more respect for the Canadian immigration authorities had they simply said so. That they were under pressure not to admit me,” he said. “That my views on Palestine were unacceptable to them. That my criticism of Israel’s crimes against humanity was intolerable.”

  • Australia soars into Eurovision final as UK song debuts

    Australia soars into Eurovision final as UK song debuts

    The 2026 Eurovision Song Contest’s second semi-final wrapped up in Vienna Thursday night, with Australian pop superstar Delta Goodrem delivering a show-stopping performance that secured her spot in the grand final and catapulted her to the top of the competition’s odds rankings. Now the second most likely contender to take home the Eurovision trophy, Goodrem is quickly closing the gap on long-standing favorite Finland, raising the prospect of a historic first win for the non-European nation that has become a beloved staple of the annual contest.

    Australia first joined Eurovision in 2015 as a one-off wildcard invite, but the contest’s massive popularity Down Under—where more than one million viewers tune in annually—turned the guest appearance into a permanent spot. A win on Saturday would mark an unprecedented milestone for the country. Goodrem, one of Australia’s best-selling female artists who earned early fame for her role on the long-running soap opera *Neighbours* familiar to UK audiences, signed her first recording contract at 15 and has already notched four number-one studio albums. Reflecting on her Eurovision journey after the semi-final, she told the BBC, “This experience has been surprisingly beautiful. To see people flying flags for music and standing with us has been an absolutely awesome thing to witness.”

    Goodrem’s semi-final staging leaned into understated sophistication rather than the over-the-top gimmicks many Eurovision acts embrace: she performed her power ballad *Eclipse* against a minimalist backdrop centered on a glowing crescent moon, saved only one subtle surprise for the performance’s closing moment. The show-stopping turn has already shifted contest dynamics, with bookmakers now ranking her just behind Finland in win odds.

    Goodrem was one of 10 acts to advance from the second semi-final to the 25-act grand final, which will air live Saturday night. The full list of second semi-final qualifiers joining her are Albania’s Alis with *Nân*, Bulgaria’s Dara with *Bangaranga*, Cyprus’s Antigoni with *Jalla*, Czechia’s Daniel Zizka with *Crossroads*, Denmark’s Søren Torpegaard Lund with *Før Vi Går Hjem*, Malta’s Aidan with *Bella*, Romania’s Alexandra Căpitănescu with *Choke Me*, Ukraine’s Leléka with *Ridnym*, and Norway’s Jonas Lovv with *Ya Ya Ya*. Five nations—Azerbaijan, Luxembourg, Armenia, Switzerland, and Latvia—were eliminated from contention in the 2026 contest, and will return to compete in 2027.

    The semi-final was packed with memorable, and in some cases controversial, performances from across the continent. Opening the night, Bulgarian singer Dara delivered a high-energy set brimming with dynamic chair choreography and fierce performance energy for her track *Bangaranga*. Though the title may read like playful nonsensical Eurovision fare, the 27-year-old artist explained the song explores “being bold” and opening up about her personal battle with anxiety. Her energetic staging has already positioned her as a potential top 10 contender for the grand final.

    Romania’s Căpitănescu entered the semi-final already facing controversy over her brooding rock track *Choke Me*. Campaigners had previously criticized the song for allegedly glorifying sexual violence, but Căpitănescu clarified the lyrics actually address the feeling of suffocating under unforgiving societal expectations. She visualized this struggle in her staging, straining against two oversized neon ropes tied to her bodice. In an unexpected coincidence, rope became a recurring theme of the night: Azerbaijan’s Jiva portrayed escaping a toxic relationship by fighting against physical restraints during her performance, while Switzerland’s Veronica Fusaro was entangled in a web of blood-red rope for *Alice*, her track confronting the trauma of stalking and abuse. Despite strong critical reception for both sets, neither accumulated enough votes to advance to the final. Fusaro did earn widespread praise for a blistering guitar solo that capped off her performance.

    The UK’s 2026 entry, Look Mum No Computer, automatically qualified for the grand final as part of the “Big Five” — the UK, France, Germany, and Italy (the Big Four) plus host nation Austria, all of whom receive automatic final spots due to their largest financial contributions to the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes Eurovision. The UK act delivered a dynamic, high-concept set, opening at an office desk before moving into a surreal, colorful landscape of exposed circuit boards and robotic dancers. The performance split opinion on social media: “UK might actually get some points this year,” Threads user Dan wrote, with commentator Karen Robinson agreeing, “He brought so much energy and real personality to the stage.” But other critics were less impressed, with a Reddit user deriding the staging as a man “huffing and puffing around an exam hall,” and Bluesky user C Grinbergs lamenting, “I don’t think it’s our year.”

    More upbeat, lighter moments came from other contestants: Antigoni, a London-based artist representing Cyprus, brought a danceable party anthem *Jalla* (translated “And More”) that blended belly dancing choreography with traditional Cypriot instrumentation, drawing obvious comparisons to global pop star Shakira. Malta’s Aidan brought warm Mediterranean energy to his tender love ballad *Bella*, while France’s Monroe offered a reflective operatic chanson *Regarde!* that encouraged audiences to pause and appreciate the beauty of the world around them. Closing out the semi-final was Norway’s Lovv with *Ya Ya Ya*, a raucous, foot-stomping rock track that echoes the sound of 2021 Eurovision champions Måneskin. The track has already become a streaming hit, racking up more than four million plays across YouTube and Spotify. Lovv made headlines earlier in the week after contest organizers asked him to tone down what they described as overly sexualized choreography during rehearsals. Laughing off the criticism, he said, “I don’t know what they are talking about! I’m the least sexual person in the whole delegation.” For the semi-final, he compromised by swapping his original hip thrust choreography for a playful cheeky wiggle, much to the audience’s amusement.

    The 10 second semi-final qualifiers will join 10 acts that advanced from the first semi-final earlier this week—Belgium, Croatia, Finland, Greece, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Serbia, and Sweden—in the grand final. They will be joined by automatic qualifiers the UK, Italy, Germany, France, and host nation Austria, for a total of 25 competing acts. UK audiences can tune into the grand final live starting at 8pm BST on Saturday via BBC One, BBC iPlayer, Radio 2, and BBC Sounds, with full live coverage and analysis available on the BBC News website. Fans can also download a printable Eurovision score card from the website to track their own rankings of the finalists ahead of the winner announcement.

  • Getting to yes on reopening Hormuz

    Getting to yes on reopening Hormuz

    The ongoing indirect negotiations between Iran and the United States, mediated by Pakistan, have hit a fresh impasse following Tehran’s response to Washington’s latest peace proposal and former President Donald Trump’s outright rejection of the deal. At the heart of the deadlock is Iran’s insistence on asserting exclusive sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz – a demand that stands in direct conflict with established international maritime law, and has thrown global energy markets into turmoil.

    The dispute over Hormuz’s status is a secondary outcome of the current conflict, not its root cause, and it cannot be resolved as a bilateral issue between the two nations. Free and unimpeded transit through the strait is an internationally recognized right held by all maritime states, making it a matter of global concern rather than a bargaining chip between Tehran and Washington. Experts widely agree that separating the Hormuz question from other outstanding disagreements between the two powers is the most logical path forward. Restoring unconditional transit through the chokepoint is critical to reversing what has become the most severe disruption to global petroleum supplies in modern history, and to securing long-term navigation freedom after the bulk of U.S. military forces withdraw from the region.

    Right now, the ongoing blockage has already triggered a global energy crisis, pushing up prices for crude oil, agricultural fertilizers, and a wide range of consumer and industrial goods worldwide. With every additional day of restricted shipping, supplies continue to dwindle, and price pressures are projected to intensify. That makes urgent diplomatic action to fully reopen the strait a top global priority.

    To understand the legal framework governing Hormuz, it is important to place it in context alongside other critical global maritime chokepoints, including the Strait of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca, and the Bab-el-Mandeb. Like these waterways, the Strait of Hormuz is extremely narrow: the 12-nautical-mile territorial seas of coastal states Iran and Oman actually meet in the middle of the shipping channel. To codify navigation rights for such strategic international straits that connect two open bodies of water, the 1994 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) – ratified by 168 nations – explicitly requires that coastal states may not block or suspend transit passage through international straits. They are also prohibited from charging tolls or discriminating against shipping from any country. While the United States has never formally ratified UNCLOS, it has long abided by this provision and many others, recognizing them as codification of centuries of customary international maritime law.

    This legal regime functioned smoothly in the Strait of Hormuz for years before the current conflict broke out. Restoring full compliance with UNCLOS rules must be a core non-negotiable international objective. The precedent matters: if Iran is allowed to charge transit tolls or assert exclusive control over Hormuz, coastal states controlling other chokepoints around the world will almost certainly follow suit, driving up global trade costs dramatically. Already, a former Indonesian finance minister has publicly floated the idea of charging tolls for ships passing through the Strait of Malacca, a key route for trade between Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Major global trade routes could easily see multiple tolled chokepoints if the Hormuz precedent is broken.

    In the wake of Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran earlier this year, Tehran declared the central navigation channel, which runs through Omani territorial waters, to be dangerous due to alleged mining. This forced all commercial shipping to reroute to the Iranian side of the strait, giving Tehran greater control over traffic and opening the door to potential transit fees. The U.S. responded with its own naval blockade of Iranian shipping in mid-April, a move that followed logically from Tehran’s actions.

    Today, both sides remain convinced that their respective blockades give them greater negotiating leverage, that time is on their side, and that the opposing party will eventually be forced to concede to their demands. Iran’s push for a new regulatory regime and exclusive sovereignty over the strait directly contradicts internationally accepted maritime law, while the U.S. has tied the resolution of the Hormuz dispute not just to a full reopening of the waterway, but also to the outcome of other contentious issues on the negotiation table.

    Weeks into the opposing blockades, both sides have demonstrated they are capable of maintaining their restrictions against challenges from the other. The net result is that commercial transit through the strait has slowed to a tiny fraction of pre-crisis volumes. A coalition of nations led by France and the United Kingdom has indicated it is prepared to deploy a symbolic naval presence to defend freedom of navigation, but it will only act after the broader conflict is resolved. This leaves the world in a dangerous holding pattern – so what actionable path forward exists to break the deadlock?

    A temporary, mutually agreed opening that allows shipping to use channels along both the Iranian and Omani coasts while mine-clearing operations proceed in the central channel would immediately address the urgent humanitarian issue of freeing dozens of commercial ships and their crews currently trapped in the Persian Gulf. This could be achieved as part of a ceasefire extension, or negotiated as a standalone humanitarian corridor similar to the 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative that allowed Ukrainian grain exports during the war. However, such a measure would only be a temporary fix, not a permanent resolution to the underlying dispute.

    The core of the problem is that two nations are clashing over a right that belongs to the entire international community. While individual major powers including China have called for the strait to be reopened, there has been no unified collective action from the global community to date.

    A more effective, permanent path forward would be a coordinated, high-impact diplomatic initiative by a large coalition of UNCLOS member states demanding the immediate restoration of the UNCLOS maritime regime in the Strait of Hormuz. This coalition would need to include countries with influence over both Iran and the United States to carry weight. Logically, leadership for this initiative should come from small and middle-sized Asian economies that are most heavily dependent on unimpeded Hormuz transit, but it must also include major powers including China, India, and key European economies. Crucially, the initiative would be strictly diplomatic, and would not take sides in the broader Iran-U.S. conflict – its only demand would be compliance with existing, widely accepted international law.

    Would this proposal gain traction with both parties? It is possible that both sides would embrace the initiative as a face-saving way out of their current mutual stalemate, providing a clear path to a mutually acceptable agreement. The UNCLOS-based solution fully preserves Iran’s and Oman’s sovereignty over their territorial waters and islands within the strait, just as it preserves sovereignty for the parties that control other international straits: for example, Morocco, Spain, and the United Kingdom share sovereignty over the Strait of Gibraltar in line with UNCLOS, just as Indonesia and Malaysia do for the Strait of Malacca.

    It is possible that Iran’s insistence on full control is merely a bargaining tactic to gain leverage in other areas of negotiation, but ultimately Tehran must accept that no unique exception can be made for Hormuz that deviates from the rules applied to every other international strait in the world.

    Neither side would surrender meaningful leverage by accepting this multilateral proposal: both have already proven their military capability to block the strait, a capability that would remain intact even if the current blockade were lifted. At the same time, both sides would see immediate economic and political gains from reopening the waterway to full commercial traffic.

    Separating the Hormuz issue also allows negotiators to turn their full attention to the original core dispute between the two nations: Iran’s enriched uranium program. This is a complex, high-stakes negotiation that requires specialized technical expertise. As Trump has noted, the issue is less immediately pressing than the Hormuz blockage, since Iran’s existing enriched uranium stockpiles are deeply buried and under close international monitoring. Ultimately, the two parties should be able to agree on a clear core goal: full Iranian compliance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons within a defined timeframe.

    If a resolution can be reached through this multilateral UNCLOS-based approach, the ongoing Iran-U.S. negotiations could serve as a tentative but transformative first step toward a broader restructuring of the Middle East regional order. The first major breakthrough of this kind came in the late 1970s, with the historic peace deal between Israel and Egypt, followed later by normalization with Jordan. Extending that difficult peace process to include Iran may seem even more ambitious today than the Egyptian-Israeli reconciliation seemed in the years immediately after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. But if pursued with patience and consistent commitment, this diplomatic effort would mark a truly unprecedented step forward for Middle East peace.

  • British Palestinians and Arabs call for ‘equal protection’ from Starmer

    British Palestinians and Arabs call for ‘equal protection’ from Starmer

    Ahead of Saturday’s 78th anniversary commemoration of the Nakba in central London, a coalition of prominent British Palestinian and Arab public figures has issued an open letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer pushing for equal safety protections for their communities, pushing back against widespread false claims that their peaceful marches are hubs of hatred.

    The scheduled Nakba 78 march for Palestinian justice is set to take place the same day as a far-right “Unite the Kingdom” rally organized by controversial far-right figure Tommy Robinson, a scheduling overlap that has stoked heightened security fears across Palestinian and Arab communities in the capital. London’s Metropolitan Police Service has already announced it has deployed over 4,000 officers to the events, confirming it is preparing for potential violent confrontations.

    In their letter, signed by doctors, activists, academics, lawyers and other London-based community leaders from Palestinian and broader Arab backgrounds, the group stresses that pro-Palestine demonstrations are not spaces of extremism, but gatherings rooted in shared humanity and demands for justice. The signatories note that Jewish activists regularly join their marches in full safety, and no pro-Palestine processions have ever targeted Jewish houses of worship — directly contradicting repeated false accusations from senior officials and media figures.

    Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley claimed earlier this month that many pro-Palestine marches intentionally route near synagogues, a statement solidarity leaders have called deliberately dishonest and dangerous. “Our marches for Palestine are about showing solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle against apartheid and genocide, and to protest against British government complicity in Israel’s crimes against them,” explained Ryvka Barnard, deputy director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. “Our upcoming march on 16 May will be no different.”

    The core grievance laid out in the letter is the stark inequality in how the British government and law enforcement address security fears for different communities. Signatories say that while other communities have received explicit public reassurance and visible security commitments from the government, Palestinian and Arab concerns about potential violence from the overlapping far-right rally have been met with silence and neglect. “It is painful to feel that our fears are treated as secondary, or worse, that our peaceful commemoration is viewed only as a policing problem,” the letter reads.

    For British Palestinians, the 78th anniversary of the Nakba is not an abstract historical event: it is an ongoing, intergenerational trauma. The Nakba — meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic — refers to the 1948 forced expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their ancestral lands by Zionist militias to clear space for the creation of the state of Israel. This year’s march will include elderly 1948 Nakba survivors marching alongside their great-grandchildren, a visible reminder of the displacement that continues to shape Palestinian life today. As the former colonial power in Palestine, the British government played a foundational role in enabling the Nakba through the 1917 Balfour Declaration, colonial-era repression of Palestinian self-determination, and state support for the early Zionist movement.

    The group’s formal demands to Starmer include parity of safety protection for Palestinian and Arab demonstrators, proactive measures to prevent far-right violence, and official recognition of the intergenerational trauma of the Nakba for British Palestinian communities.

    The current Labour government led by Starmer has imposed a harsh crackdown on Palestinian solidarity activism since taking office in summer 2024. The direct action group Palestine Action has been officially banned, with its members prosecuted under terrorism legislation. Protesters speaking out against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians to date, have repeatedly been labeled antisemites by politicians and mainstream media outlets — a claim that holds no evidential weight, given the consistent participation of large numbers of Jewish anti-war activists in pro-Palestine marches.

  • US Supreme Court restores abortion pill access for now

    US Supreme Court restores abortion pill access for now

    In a high-stakes decision that will shape abortion access across the United States for the coming months, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that mail delivery of the abortion pill mifepristone can remain legal while broader litigation over the drug’s regulatory status moves through the court system. The emergency order, issued Thursday, blocks harsh restrictions imposed by a lower appellate court that would have required patients to obtain the pill in person, delivering a temporary win to reproductive rights advocates after weeks of uncertainty.

    The case stems from a lawsuit filed last October by the state of Louisiana, which aimed to halt all mail distribution of mifepristone. Louisiana argued that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s policy allowing nationwide mail access interfered with the state’s strict total abortion ban, writing that “Every abortion facilitated by FDA’s action cancels Louisiana’s ban on medical abortions and undermines its policy that ‘every unborn child is human being from the moment of conception and is, therefore, a legal person.” In early May, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals responded to the suit by temporarily reinstating a long-suspended rule requiring in-person pickup of the drug.

    Within days, Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, the two companies that manufacture mifepristone, asked the Supreme Court to intervene to block the appeals court’s restrictions while the legal process moves forward. Thursday’s ruling, which is known as a “stay,” grants that request: the restrictions on mail access will remain off the table until the Supreme Court decides whether it will take up the full emergency appeal from the manufacturers. That decision could come as late as next year, meaning current access rules will stay in place for months.

    The order came out of the court’s emergency docket and was issued without a full accompanying explanation, but it revealed a familiar split among the justices. The court’s two most conservative members, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, issued dissents opposing the decision to keep mail access open. In his written dissent, Thomas argued that because mifepristone distribution by mail is classified as illegal under Louisiana state law, the drug manufacturers have no right to challenge the lower court’s order, writing that they are not entitled to “based on lost profits from their criminal enterprise.”

    The long-running legal battle over mifepristone comes against a shifting regulatory and legal landscape for abortion access in the U.S. Mifepristone, the first medication in the FDA-approved two-drug regimen for early pregnancy termination, has become the most common method of abortion across the country in recent years, and its availability via mail is particularly critical for patients living in the more than 20 states that have banned or severely restricted abortion since 2022.

    The current rules allowing mail access date back to 2023, when the FDA made permanent a pandemic-era policy that lifted the requirement for in-person dispensing of the drug, first implemented in 2021. That policy change came just months after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning *Roe v. Wade*, the landmark 1973 ruling that had established a constitutional right to abortion nationwide. The 2022 ruling handed authority to regulate abortion to individual states, leading dozens of conservative-led states to implement near-total or total bans.

    Last year, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected an earlier attempt to restrict mifepristone access, but that ruling explicitly left the door open to future legal challenges targeting the drug’s availability. Thursday’s order is the first major outcome from the wave of new challenges that followed, and it keeps the current access model intact for the immediate future.