分类： politics

As the United Kingdom prepares for local elections across 136 councils on May 7, a sitting Labour Party councillor seeking re-election has found herself at the center of a growing political firestorm over her past participation in an Israeli military training program.

Izzy Lenga, who represents London’s South Hampstead ward in Camden, holds multiple senior positions within UK Labour-linked and pro-Zionist organizations: she serves on the Labour Party’s London executive committee, and is currently one of two national vice chairs of the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), an influential group officially affiliated with the Labour Party. The JLM itself operates within the structure of the World Zionist Organisation (WZO), a global group with documented ties to the establishment of illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. Lenga previously served as JLM’s international officer, leading engagement with the WZO and its UK affiliate, the Zionist Federation UK (ZFUK).

Pictures published of Lenga posing in an Israel Defense Forces uniform alongside an assault rifle first raised questions about her military ties back in 2021, when alternative news outlet Electronic Intifada reported the images indicated she had completed Marva, a paramilitary course overseen by the Israeli military. Two years later, Jewish News confirmed Lenga had indeed participated in basic training with the IDF.

The controversy comes at a moment of intense global scrutiny of Israeli military actions in Gaza. The Israeli military is widely identified as the primary force responsible for ongoing civilian harm in Gaza, with multiple documented accounts of war crimes ranging from deliberate killing of unarmed civilians to sexual violence against detainees. The International Court of Justice has already ruled there is a plausible case that Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to genocide, and the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. It was Gallant who famously described Gaza civilians as “human animals” in a public statement shortly after the October 2023 outbreak of hostilities.

Recent reporting has further underscored the links between the WZO and illegal settlement activity. A September 2024 BBC documentary uncovered that the WZO’s Settlement Division, the body tasked with managing land in the occupied Palestinian territories, has repeatedly allocated state and private Palestinian land for the construction of illegal Israeli outposts. In at least four confirmed cases, unauthorised outposts were built on land allocated directly by the division, including one 2018 contract signed by Zvi Bar Yosef – an Israeli official sanctioned by both the UK and US in 2024 for organized violence and intimidation targeting Palestinian civilians. The ZFUK, the WZO’s UK affiliate that works closely with JLM, was removed from the UK’s official charities register in August 2024, just weeks before the documentary was released.

In June 2025, the UK-based International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) submitted a formal recommendation for British sanctions against the WZO’s Settlement Division, outlining a pattern of violations including the seizure of private Palestinian land for settlers without owner consent, unregulated land management with no required compensation for displaced owners, and preferential financial treatment for settlers. The ICJP also identified two UK-based organizations that facilitate the WZO’s activities: ZFUK and Mizrachi UK, a registered UK charity that receives direct funding from the WZO.

The JLM remains a highly influential force within the current Labour Party, counting sitting parliamentarians, councillors, and grassroots activists among its membership. In a January 2024 speech to a JLM conference – delivered months before Keir Starmer took office as UK prime minister – Starmer publicly thanked the movement for “saving the party”, and pledged to block what he described as antisemitism hiding behind pro-Palestinian advocacy.

For the upcoming May 7 local elections, Starmer’s Labour government faces electoral pressure on two fronts: the right-wing populist Reform UK party on one side, and left-leaning and progressive opposition groups including the Green Party and local independent campaigns on the other. More than 5,000 council seats across the country are up for election. The Green Party has made its opposition to the UK’s financial ties to Israel’s actions in Gaza a central campaign plank, with senior party officials confirming the Greens are pushing for local councils to divest pension funds that hold investments in companies profiting from the Gaza conflict, fossil fuel extraction, and arms manufacturing.

Middle East Eye, the independent outlet that broke the latest details of the controversy, attempted to contact Izzy Lenga for comment prior to publication, but received no response before the article went live.

A high-stakes legal action has rocked France’s logistics and political spheres this week, as a prominent pro-Palestine advocacy organization has brought an unprecedented accusation of “complicity in genocide” against global shipping giant FedEx over its alleged role in moving military aircraft components bound for Israeli forces operating in the Gaza Strip.

The French Jewish Union for Peace (UJFP) filed the complaint Tuesday with France’s National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT), leveling allegations that the U.S.-headquartered carrier’s French subsidiary deliberately facilitated the transfer, routing, and delivery of critical aircraft parts from the United States to Israel, with France serving as a transit hub. According to the legal filing, the shipped components are used to service and repair F-35 fighter jets operated by the Israeli Air Force for bombing and intelligence surveillance missions across Gaza. The complaint categorizes the company’s actions as potential participation in three violations of international law: war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

In an immediate response to reporters from AFP, FedEx France flatly rejected all claims laid out in the filing. The company issued a clear statement emphasizing that it never handles international deliveries of weapons or ammunition, denying any wrongdoing in the matter.

The UJFP’s complaint draws on shipment tracking data compiled by a coalition of pro-Palestine groups, including People’s Embargo for Palestine and Urgence Palestine. The filing documents 117 separate shipments that transited Paris Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport between early April and late October 2025, all managed by FedEx Express FR. Of those, 22 were shipped directly from Paris to Israel, with at least three carried on French-registered FedEx aircraft. The plaintiffs argue that FedEx could not have been unaware of the contents of these packages, noting that many contain mechanical and aeronautical parts classified as dual-use—items that can serve both civilian and military purposes—specifically suited for military aircraft.

Speaking to independent French outlet Mediapart, UJFP’s legal counsel Damia Taharraoui dismissed any claims of civilian utility for the tracked shipments. “There’s no scenario where these parts are for civilian use. We have casings, parachutes, all destined for Israeli military bases. These are components explicitly identified as functional for F-35 jets, and also potentially for F-15 and F-16 models,” Taharraoui explained.

Under French national trade rules, any transit or export of military-grade or dual-use goods requires formal government authorization. The complaint calls on prosecutors to launch a full judicial inquiry to determine whether French officials granted FedEx approval for these shipments. Taharraoui stressed that if official authorizations are confirmed, they would directly violate international treaties France has ratified, most notably the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

The legal filing comes amid a years-long period of tense diplomatic and political friction between France and pro-Palestine movements, tied to Paris’ longstanding stance on the Gaza conflict. Since Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza in October 2023, France has maintained broad public support for the operation, which the United Nations and multiple leading human rights organizations have classified as a genocide. As of the latest counts, the conflict has killed more than 72,500 people in Gaza and left most of the densely populated enclave in ruins.

The French government has consistently pushed back against accusations that it supplies lethal arms to Israel, stating that it only exports non-lethal components for Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system, along with items marked for re-export. Still, tensions rose between Paris and Tel Aviv last month when Israel announced it would suspend security-related imports from France, accusing the French government of adopting a “hostile” posture—an action widely linked to France’s September 2024 decision to formally recognize the State of Palestine.

Despite this diplomatic rift, the French government has continued to crack down on domestic pro-Palestine advocacy, restricting the movement of Palestinian human rights activists within the country. Just last week, French authorities denied a visa to Shawan Jabarin, general director of Ramallah-based leading Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq, blocking him from attending a series of high-profile diplomatic and legislative briefings at the French National Assembly, French Foreign Ministry, and the Council of Europe.

This marked the second time French and European authorities have rejected Jabarin’s visa application since September 2024, when the United States imposed sanctions on Al-Haq. Jabarin, who was awarded the French Republic’s human rights prize in 2018 and met with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in 2022, was also scheduled to attend meetings at the European Parliament’s human rights committee in Strasbourg and policy briefings in Belgium. The last-minute visa refusal meant he was forced to cancel all planned engagements across the region.

Beijing’s top judicial authority has released a targeted legal guideline mandating local courts to expand specialized legal and intellectual property protection for high-growth cutting-edge sectors, including artificial intelligence and biomedicine, as part of broader efforts to fuel the development of new quality productive forces.

Issued by the Beijing High People’s Court on Wednesday, the directive requires capital city courts to prioritize AI, biomedicine and other key innovative industries throughout the 15th Five-Year Plan period spanning 2026 to 2030. Under the new framework, courts will fully leverage existing legal regimes covering patents, trademarks, trade secrets and software copyrights to build a robust judicial protection system tailored to the unique innovation demands of these fast-evolving sectors.

The guideline encourages judges across Beijing to conduct deep dives into unresolved legal questions emerging from these new technological fields, with a specific focus on artificial intelligence. This research is intended to speed up the formation of clear adjudication standards that align with both technological progress and industrial development needs.

To further strengthen the quality of rulings, the document calls for the accurate implementation of punitive damages in intellectual property disputes involving emerging sectors. It also emphasizes expanding the role of technical investigators and industry experts in providing specialized technical assessment and analysis during case proceedings.

Zhang Xiaojin, chief judge of the high court’s third civil division, highlighted that the new guideline marks a critical step in shoring up legal support for high-tech and cutting-edge research and development in Beijing. “This framework advances a judicial approach that integrates technical industry standards with balanced, forward-looking development,” Zhang explained. She added that the guideline also aims to deepen cross-agency cooperation with administrative regulatory bodies, improve the overall quality of intellectual property case adjudication, and support Beijing’s commitment to high-level opening-up to global innovation partners.

New data released alongside the guideline illustrates the rapid growth of intellectual property disputes tied to emerging tech in the capital. In 2025 alone, Beijing courts concluded 64,960 intellectual property cases, of which 9,963 involved digital economy issues including data property rights, artificial intelligence and internet platform operations. Cross-regional and international IP casework has also expanded steadily: last year, Beijing courts closed 7,686 intellectual property disputes involving foreign parties, as well as stakeholders from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

Beijing’s existing judicial infrastructure for technical IP cases has already built a solid track record ahead of the new guideline. Since 2015, 306 certified technical investigators have participated in resolving complex technical questions across more than 4,500 intellectual property cases, laying the groundwork for the expanded specialized role outlined in the new framework.

Diplomatic friction over Japan’s remembrance of its wartime past has flared again, following the arrest of a South Korean national at Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine during the site’s annual spring festival this Wednesday. Japanese law enforcement officials confirmed the suspect was taken into custody on accusations of disrupting public event proceedings at the shrine.

Yasukuni Shrine holds a deeply divisive place in modern East Asian politics. The Shinto site honors 2.5 million Japanese individuals who died in conflicts over the past centuries, including 14 Class-A convicted World War II war criminals. For countries that suffered brutal Japanese imperial aggression before and during WWII — most notably China and the two Korean states — official and high-profile political visits to the shrine are widely interpreted as a deliberate refusal to acknowledge and apologize for Japan’s wartime atrocities.

According to details released by Japan’s Kyodo News agency, the 64-year-old South Korean suspect positioned himself at the shrine’s main entrance gate, directly in the path of vehicles transporting imperial messengers. The shrine confirmed on its official website that the messengers were tasked with bringing ritual offerings from Japan’s emperor to the shrine for the annual spring festival. The suspect unfurled a banner bearing two provocative political messages: one calling for the removal of convicted war criminals from the shrine’s roll of honor and an end to commemorative prayers for them at the site, and another asserting South Korea’s territorial claim to the island contested by Seoul and Tokyo, known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan.

The arrest comes one day after a separate development that reignited regional criticism. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who has a long history of regular personal visits to Yasukuni Shrine, opted to send a ritual ornament to the shrine for the second consecutive term as prime minister, rather than visiting in person. The move still drew sharp condemnation from both China and South Korea.

Hours after the arrest, a group of more than 100 Japanese right-wing lawmakers — including one sitting cabinet minister — carried out a planned group visit to pray at the shrine, a move that will likely escalate regional discontent over Japan’s approach to its wartime history further.

A fragile ceasefire currently holds between the United States, Israel and Iran, but diplomatic efforts to resolve the deep-rooted disputes fueling the conflict have stalled, leaving the international community grappling with a critical question: where will this confrontation go from here? According to analysis from two international relations scholars, the most probable trajectory is not a comprehensive, lasting peace deal, but a frozen conflict — a state of unresolved, low-scale hostility that falls far short of full-scale open war but never reaches a formal political resolution.

Frozen conflicts are far from static; they linger for years or even decades with persistent underlying tensions that can erupt into renewed violence at any time. This pattern typically emerges when no overarching political agreement can be reached between warring parties. One well-documented example is the conflict in eastern Ukraine that persisted from 2014 until Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Despite an estimated 14,000 deaths among military personnel and civilians, and constant covert cyber and information operations between the two sides, the conflict was widely categorized as frozen for eight years.

Even if new negotiations, scheduled to resume in Pakistan, eventually produce a tentative agreement, three core factors point strongly toward a frozen conflict rather than durable peace, the analysts argue.

First, U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign policy approach frames ceasefires as an end to conflict in themselves, rather than a temporary pause to negotiate substantive political solutions. Trump has publicly claimed credit for ending ten separate conflicts, including the current US-Iran confrontation and Israel’s war in Lebanon. Closer examination of his track record reveals that most of these claimed successes amount to nothing more than fragile ceasefires, with core disputes still completely unresolved. This pattern has already left multiple frozen conflict hotspots around the globe with persistent high tensions: for example, a 2025 brief armed clash between India and Pakistan remains unresolved, with repeated risk of renewed fighting, while a lasting peace agreement to resolve 2025 border disputes between Thailand and Cambodia remains out of reach. In every case, Trump has declared victory and shifted focus to other global priorities as soon as major open fighting stops, leaving core issues unaddressed.

Second, the inherent dynamics of asymmetric conflicts make lasting political settlements far less likely than frozen outcomes. This current confrontation is distinctly asymmetric: the US and Israel hold overwhelming military superiority over Iran, pushing Iran to rely on unconventional tactics to counterbalance US power. These tactics have included targeting critical infrastructure in non-belligerent Persian Gulf states and closing the Strait of Hormuz to global commercial shipping, a move that disrupts international energy markets and the broader global economy. Academic research consistently shows asymmetric conflicts are inherently protracted and often open-ended, making frozen conflict far more likely than a lasting negotiated resolution. The dynamic is simple: the weaker side cannot win a conventional military victory against a much stronger opponent, so it instead relies on political, economic and psychological pressure to wear down the stronger power, forcing a withdrawal and ceasefire rather than surrender. This is exactly the dynamic playing out in the current conflict: Trump is facing mounting domestic and international pressure to end open hostilities, pushing him to pursue a ceasefire that he can frame as a US victory, while Iran has accepted the ceasefire as a survival tactic as the weaker party, not as a commitment to long-term conflict resolution. This echoes the decades-long frozen conflict between the US and the Taliban in Afghanistan, where the militant group survived 20 years of low-intensity conflict before retaking full control of the country after US withdrawal.

Third, neither party has shown any meaningful commitment to addressing the complex, core disputes that triggered the conflict in the first place, most notably the long-standing standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. The first round of peace talks held in Pakistan on April 11–12 collapsed entirely after Iran refused to make concessions on its nuclear activities, which Iran has repeatedly described as an inalienable right for civilian energy and medical purposes. It is worth noting that the 2015 multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the landmark nuclear deal with Iran, took 20 months of intensive negotiation to finalize. Just three years after the agreement was reached, Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA, calling it a “horrible one-sided deal” that favored Iran. Given this troubled history, a quick resolution to this deeply complex dispute is effectively impossible. Some analysts have floated the possibility of a partial, surface-level agreement that delays negotiations on the most technical and contentious details to a later date, but Iran has shown no willingness to back down from its long-stated claims to sovereign nuclear rights, and has already demonstrated its geostrategic resolve by following through on threats to close the Strait of Hormuz and disrupt global commerce.

What would a frozen conflict mean for the Middle East? Even if the current ceasefire holds and a partial agreement is reached, unresolved underlying tensions will leave the region in a permanent state of instability, with regular threats exchanged over Iran’s nuclear program and periodic violent flare-ups between Iran and Israel, Iran and the US, or both. This mirrors the current frozen conflict in Gaza: in October 2025, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire under Trump’s 20-point peace plan, and the first phase was largely implemented, leading to a hostage and prisoner exchange, a reduction in heavy Israeli bombardment, and a resumption of humanitarian aid into the strip. But no progress has been made on the core complex questions of post-war Gaza governance, large-scale reconstruction of the enclave, and the critical issue of Hamas disarmament. As a result, Israeli troops have refused to fully withdraw from Gaza, and low-level violence continues to this day.

Historical precedent further underscores the risks of this outcome. The 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War was never followed by a formal peace treaty, leaving North and South Korea technically at war for more than 70 years. This decades-long frozen conflict directly pushed North Korea to pursue an underground nuclear weapons program that remains a major global threat decades later. Similarly, the 75-year frozen conflict between India and Pakistan has spurred a regional nuclear arms race, constant instability across South Asia, and repeated outbreaks of deadly violence.

Following this historical pattern, a frozen conflict between the US, Israel and Iran will almost certainly generate similar long-term instability across the Middle East. It would likely fuel a new regional arms race, increase the risk of irregular and cyber conflict, and create repeated disruptions to global energy supplies through periodic flare-ups over control of the critical Strait of Hormuz.

This analysis comes from Jessica Genauer, Academic Director at the Public Policy Institute of UNSW Sydney, and Benedict Moleta, a PhD candidate in the Department of International Relations at the Australian National University, originally published in *The Conversation* under a Creative Commons license.

In a landmark step forward for bilateral cooperation, Cambodia and China launched their inaugural “2+2” Strategic Dialogue Mechanism on Wednesday, bringing the top foreign policy and defense leaders of both nations together in Phnom Penh to advance mutual political and security alignment.

The high-level gathering drew Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Defense Minister Dong Jun to the Cambodian capital, where they met with their respective Cambodian counterparts: Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn and Defense Minister Tea Seiha. The dialogue initiative was first proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his state visit to Cambodia in April 2023, designed to strengthen the two countries’ existing comprehensive strategic partnership. This new ministerial-level dialogue format marks China’s second such framework in Southeast Asia, following a similar arrangement launched with Indonesia last year, as Beijing continues expanding its diplomatic and security influence across the region.

Beyond the joint dialogue session, the two visiting Chinese ministers are scheduled to hold separate bilateral meetings with Cambodia’s Senate President Hun Sen and Prime Minister Hun Manet during their trip. After the conclusion of the inaugural “2+2” talks, Wang Yi will hold in-depth one-on-one discussions with Prak Sokhonn on Thursday to review progress on implementing existing bilateral cooperation agreements and explore shared efforts to advance peace, security and stability across Southeast Asia.

Following his engagement in Cambodia, China’s foreign ministry confirmed Tuesday that Wang Yi will continue his Southeast Asian tour with official visits to Thailand and Myanmar.

As of Wednesday, Cambodian officials have not released immediate details on the content or outcomes of the closed-door talks.

Longstanding close ties bind the two nations: China is Cambodia’s largest source of foreign direct investment and top international aid donor, and Cambodia is widely recognized as Beijing’s closest political ally in Southeast Asia. Bilateral trade between the two countries hit $19.73 billion in 2023, with a significant trade imbalance tilted heavily in China’s favor.

This deep strategic partnership has sparked persistent scrutiny from Western governments and independent analysts, particularly centered on a Chinese-funded upgrade of Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base, located on the Gulf of Thailand. Skeptics have raised repeated suspicions that the renovated facility will ultimately function as a forward strategic military outpost for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy. Construction on the base completed major upgrades last year, including a new longer pier capable of accommodating larger naval vessels, a fully functional dry dock for ship repairs, and additional supporting infrastructure.

The U.S. government has publicly stated its concern that Cambodia has secretly granted China exclusive access to portions of the base, claims Cambodian officials have repeatedly and forcefully denied. During a public opening event for the base expansion in April 2023, Prime Minister Hun Manet explicitly rejected the allegations, emphasizing that all construction and expansion work was carried out transparently and no secret agreements had been struck with Beijing.

In a notable development three months ago, the USS Cincinnati, a U.S. Navy warship carrying a crew of roughly 100 service members, became the first American naval vessel to dock at Ream Naval Base following the completion of the Chinese-funded renovation, marking a small but symbolic step in U.S. engagement with the facility.