Mick Hartley

Author: Mick Hartley

  • Sweida update

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  • The routine elevation of the Gaza Health Ministry

    .com/I74Lm2MUSS

    — Natasha Hausdorff (@HausdorffMedia) July 18, 2025

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    Report here:

    In May 2025, the U.S. Department of State began a special aid initiative through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to deliver meals and direct food assistance to Palestinian civilians throughout the Gaza Strip. The mandate was straightforward: to securely move aid into a network of Secure Distribution Sites which would facilitate the distribution of millions of meals to hungry civilians1. The effort has delivered over 60 million meals since its inception.

    Within days of GHF’s first meal deliveries, it became the target of a deliberate narrative assault, driven less by verifiable facts than by the demands of a competing narrative. Reports and evidence of violence at aid sites began to surface, and international and U.S. media outlets, social media influencers, and NGOs started publishing articles that ascribed blame to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) or GHF for intentional violence against civilians, war crimes, and complicity in the crime of genocide.

    The reports quickly condensed into viral headlines, but the claim that the IDF was systematically murdering civilians was usually sourced from Hamas-run ministries or anonymous accounts, and often unverified. Moreover, evidence that Hamas could be responsible for violence around aid sites – evidence provided by non-Hamas Palestinian sources, by Hamas’s online communications, and by video that in some cases shows Hamas operatives deliberately firing on Palestinian civilians – was almost never suggested.

    A significant number of headlines from mainstream media outlets thus elevated one side of the story – the side promoted by a designated foreign terrorist organization – without waiting for forensic clarity and countervailing evidence. Although in some cases the body texts of news articles did make an effort to present a more holistic exploration of sources, the verdict or tone in the headlines – that the IDF and/or GHF was responsible for the killings at aid sites – was already given.

    A core failure of media coverage is the routine elevation of the Gaza Health Ministry, a Hamas-run agency, as a trusted source on culpability for violence. While violence itself is not always in dispute, the headlines overwhelmingly frame Israel or GHF as responsible, burying in the body text that these claims originate from Hamas if this fact is revealed at all. The result is a narrative that masks its source and misleads the public about who is to blame.

    The Gaza Health Ministry itself is run by Hamas and for that reason alone cannot be quoted as a politically neutral source for answering questions of culpability or fact. The Ministry has a proven and systematic history of lies, deceptions, duplicated data, and exaggerations which strain credulity of any nonpartisan observer….

  • In Sweida

    s conspicuously in the IDF, has close kinship ties to the Syrian Druze. The outrage within Israel over the Sweida massacres quickly turned into protests blocking highways. Hundreds of Israeli Druze even crossed into Syria to defend their brethren. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing internal controversies, seized an opportunity to appear tough and decisive. Launching airstrikes in support of the Sweida Druze has proven popular domestically, earning him political points while signalling strength.

    See also:

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  • The BBC’s legitimisation of Hamas

    simply not true. The UK government makes no such distinction. Under British law Hamas is “proscribed in its entirety” as a terrorist organisation because any attempt to distinguish “between the various parts of Hamas is artificial”.

    As the leader of BBC News, on a £430,000 salary, Turness ought to know such basic points. Ironically, she is also the driving force behind the much-derided BBC Verify fact-checking service. Perhaps they could help her out here.

    This leaked video is damning evidence of the failures of accuracy that are corroding the BBC’s output when it comes to the Gaza war. Crucially, it also reveals that those who lead the BBC simply do not understand the genocidal terrorist ideals that infuse every element of Hamas. This has played a critical role in creating a public perception that Hamas is legitimate, a resistance movement rather than a terrorist army that seeks the death of all Jews.

    The BBC’s legitimisation of Hamas began as soon as they started murdering babies and raping women on October 7. The refusal to call Hamas terrorists has been followed as the war progressed by the corporation’s daily willingness to report unverified figures and spurious claims from the “Hamas-run health ministry”. Driven by a hunger to break news and get clicks on social media, the BBC’s approach has been to report first and ask questions later.

    Hamas know that any press release they issue will go straight onto the BBC's headlines. Nice work for a terrorist organisation that makes no secret of its Islamist ideology and its hatred of Jews.

  • At the NHS Fife tribunal

    tribunal has heard.

    Gillian Malone – who is head of nursing at NHS Fife – said nurse Sandie Peggie should have raised concerns about sharing facilities with Dr Beth Upton – a trans woman – in a different way.

    Ms Peggie and Dr Upton exchanged words on Christmas Eve 2023 after the nurse told the doctor they should not be in the same changing room at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy.

    Ms Malone said Ms Peggie's comments that Dr Upton was a man constituted unacceptable conduct.

    Why doesn't NHS Fife just throw in the towel? Yesterday their head of Equalities and Human Rights didn't know what sex she was, and now the head nurse tells us it was unacceptable for Sandie Peggie, coming in to the women's changing room to change herself during a heavy period she was experiencing and finding a man there, to mention the fact that he was a man.

    What she should have done: she should have kept quiet, changed herself while the man looked on, then later approached her line manager with her concerns – at which point she would have been instructed to attend a compulsory course on transphobia, and how people with penises can be women especially if they wear a wig and a dress and some make-up and tilt their head to one side in a coquettish manner, and how trans people are especially sensitive to being misgendered so it's something you must never do. Then everyone would have lived happily ever after.

  • Defining Islamophobia

    s reported to the charity watchdog by the National Secular Society.

    Megan Manson, the society’s head of campaigns, said: “Ofcom was right to sanction this group. These comments, broadcast within days of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, were antisemitic in the extreme and could have contributed to the division and hate crime in the wake of that attack.

    “We urge the Charity Commission to take an equally robust stance on this charity and ensure it cannot publish hateful or divisive sermons in the future — even if that means removing the charity from its register. Charities must never be permitted to be exploited by extremists.

    “That this charity responded to Ofcom’s concerns by calling the regulator ‘Islamophobic’ also demonstrates the pitfalls of trying to create an official definition of ‘Islamophobia’. Regulators trying to protect the public must not be hindered by fears of such accusations.”

    MPs and campaigners have warned that the extremist broadcast exposes the real-world risk of the government’s plans to introduce a new Islamophobia definition.

  • Where immovable stupidity meets unstoppable incompetence

    statement that was simultaneously obtuse and orthodox. Multiple Scottish politicians have said similar things. Meanwhile, Upton says “I’m biologically female”, though we should also acknowledge that “the term biologically female or biologically male is completely nebulous”. I remind you that this person is a qualified physician.

    Well, I am not persuaded Upton is correct about the science here but I am confident that the science is irrelevant since this is a question of law and the law is entirely clear: Upton is a man because he is biologically male.

    The health board’s defence for its apparently unlawful policies appears to be no stronger than the suggestion that every other health board in Scotland was doing the same thing. I submit that “Cut us some slack, everyone else was incompetent too” is a bold claim of justification that is unlikely to prove persuasive….

    Collared by the radio station LBC, John Swinney declared that of course he had confidence in the people running NHS Fife. He could hardly say otherwise without making the board’s position even less tenable than is already the case. Yet for all that Swinney would dearly love this issue to disappear, it will not. NHS Fife may be run astonishingly badly but it is hardly the only organisation in Scotland of which that judgment could be made.

    For the health board was not acting independently or in any kind of off-the-reservation, freelancing capacity. On the contrary, it was following the same mistaken and unlawful “advice” as every other public sector agency and it was doing so in circumstances in which the baseline and expectations for behaviour were set by the Scottish government itself. If there is rot here — and, my, there really is in every sense of the word — it begins at the very top.

    In other words, the Scottish government cannot wash its hands of this affair any more than NHS Fife can emerge from it with its reputation enhanced. Magical thinking has been the default proposition across the public sector for many years and we are only now gaining a full sense of the damage this nonsense has caused. The Peggie case is but a microcosm of the macro failings apparent across a public sector where immovable stupidity meets unstoppable incompetence.

    Yes, Peggie's been cleared of gross misconduct, but this tribunal case rumbles on…

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  • Pride and Prejudice

    — Linzi 🖤🤍 (@RightNUFC) July 16, 2025

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    Full text:

    I am delighted with the judgement of the Court. It is terrifying to live in a community where the police have abandoned their duty of impartiality and embraced a highly controversial political cause. I’ve experienced first-hand what happens when the police forget their duty of impartiality. I posted some gender critical tweets, and Northumbria Police launched an investigation into my conduct – but when I received appalling homophobic abuse as a lesbian, they did absolutely nothing. Their participation in the Pride march clearly shows where their sympathies lie. Today however, the court has ruled decisively that the Chief Constable acted unlawfully. My hope is that Northumbria Police change their ways and follow this ruling. If they do they will be policing the community for everyone.

    Many Thanks to each and every one of you who showed me support throughout.
    This is a victory for all of us. ❤️

    Last word to Joan Smith:

    It’s a scandal of epic proportions that so many senior police officers have embraced gender ideology. They have fallen for the lie that giving special rights to trans people, at the expense of everyone else, is a neutral and apolitical act. Today’s judgment has stripped away that excuse, exposing the spectacle of cops waving Progress flags as a declaration of blatant bias.

  • Clothes maketh the woman

    t stupid ideology ever.

    — Dennis Noel Kavanagh (@Jebadoo2) July 15, 2025

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  • North Korea’s Dog Days

    ders ahead of the summer peak in anticipation of a sales surge.

    Households commonly buy and cook dog meat in kilogram units, and as the hottest period approaches, prices surge and supply tightens. As a result, restaurants are reportedly rushing to secure stock from traders.

    According to the source, dog meat traders in Hamhung are now traveling directly to rural villages to secure dogs, as few urban residents raise them. Rural households, however, still tend to keep dogs.

    In Hyesan, Ryanggang province, dog traders are also actively moving through rural areas, reportedly offering above-market prices to secure supply.

    Best keep Fido indoors for the next few weeks.

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