Category Archives: Negotiations

If Israel won’t release a Palestinian who could create lasting peace, doesn’t that make Israel the problem?

Terrorist or peacemaker: Marwan Barghouti could be the key to a new future for Israel and Palestine if both sides just have a little faith – or he could just renew the cycle of hate. Will the two sides be able to make a leap of faith?

It seems peace negotiations between Israel and Hamas have stalled – because Hamas wants Israel to release a political rival.

Marwan Barthouti is a leading member of Fatah, the political party that runs the Palestinian Authority (that rules parts of the West Bank) – and could be the leader who could negotiate a lasting peace and the creation of a Palestinian state.

The Israeli government does not want him to be released. So logically…

Doesn’t that mean Israel – or rather the Israeli government – doesn’t want peace but wants the violence and killing to continue?

Here‘s the Associated Press:

Marwan Barghouti’s freedom is at stake in cease-fire negotiations between Hamas and Israel. Hamas leaders demanded Friday that Israel release Barghouti, a leader of the militant group’s main political rival, as part of any deal to end the fighting in Gaza.

The demand brings new attention to Barghouti, who plays a central role in Palestinian politics even after spending more than two decades behind bars. His release could lay the groundwork for his eventual election to national office.

Hamas’ demand that Israel release Marwan Barghouti brings new attention to a man many Palestinians see as their Nelson Mandela.

Palestinians see the 64-year-old Barghouti, a member of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, as a natural successor to the 88-year-old Abbas, who leads the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, the self-ruled government that administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

if Barghouti is released, he could become a consensus candidate in a round of new elections that Hamas, Fatah and other Palestinian factions could rally behind.

But the Israeli government considers Barghouti to be a terrorist – possibly with very good reason.

So there’s a moral question here: should Israel release a terrorist to secure the reciprocal release of the remaining 136 hostages taken by Hamas on October 7 last year?

And: is it possible that the terrorist has changed – enough to create a lasting peace, rather than war?

Releasing this man would be a huge gamble. But is it worthwhile?

Source: Hamas demands Israel release Marwan Barghouti, a man some Palestinians see as their Nelson Mandela | AP News

Tory line on why they won’t negotiate with junior doctors is gibberish

Steve Barclay: watch him stutter through his nonsense argument against negotiating a better pay deal for junior doctors.

Listen to the nonsense that issues from former Health Sec Steve Barclay’s lips when he’s challenged on why his government won’t negotiate with striking junior doctors, while they’re on strike.

I don’t actually agree with Peter Stefanovic about Susanna Reid; she could have been much more incisive.

The issue is that the government says it will not negotiate on pay with junior doctors while they are involved in strike action. It will only talk if they call their strikes off.

But if they call their strikes off, then the government won’t have any reason to negotiate on pay with junior doctors. So it won’t; it will merely continue to impose punitive real-terms pay cuts.

“There was a catch, and it was Catch-22.”

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As a member of the public, you need to be aware of this Tory government tactic, and of how unfair it is.

Doctors’ pay has been eroded by more than one-third – by Tory governments – in the years since they took over responsibility for the health service in 2010. By comparison, Tory MPs’ salaries have remained at the same level, in real terms, as they were in 2010.

The only way the Tories would have a tenable argument against increasing junior doctors’ pay by the 35 per cent needed to return it to parity with 2010 would be if their own pay had also tumbled. It hasn’t, so they don’t.

Do you remember the Tory mantra from the general election of 2010? It was “We’re all in it together.”

Could there be a stronger argument than this that they were lying?


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Israel continues to pound Gaza as ceasefire is delayed

Gaza bombarded: this shot was taken a while ago. Who knows how this skyline looks today?

A four-day ceasefire and exchange of hostages between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has been delayed by a day – possibly more – for reasons that are not entirely clear.

The temporary cessation of hostilities has been brokered by Qatar, and will include an exchange of 150 Palestinians who are currently held in Israeli prisons for 50 of the hostages Hamas took on October 7.

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It is not clear why the delay is happening. It has been suggested that Hamas is having trouble gathering its 50 hostages together, but it has also been suggested – by an Israeli government source, according to the BBC – that Hamas has made extra demands to be added to the deal.

So Gaza continues to suffer while the diplomats argue.


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What’s wrong with calling for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire?

Apocalypse now: how can anyone oppose a ceasefire when this hell is being rained on innocent men, women and children?

We’re hearing a huge number of calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas at the moment.

Is it practical? Some would say “no”. Is that because Hamas isn’t actually doing much firing, and Israel is having fun destroying buildings and murdering innocent Gazans?

Let’s see – starting with a bit of context:

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The United Nations has, in fact, passed a non-binding resolution calling for a ceasefire.

But the UK abstained for the stupidest reason possible:

Here’s how the vote went:

Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf, who has relatives in Gaza who are living without clean drinking water, had something to say about this:

Meanwhile, ceasefire calls are mounting – many with well-reasoned thinking behind them:

But what about the demands that there should not be a ceasefire? Are these well-reasoned arguments?

I answered this one. Was it a good response?

Let’s cut through the nonsense here. According to our good friend Wikipedia – and I’ve changed the quote around to emphasise the point I want to make,

The immediate goal of a ceasefire is to stop violence, but the underlying purposes of ceasefires vary. An actor may not always intend for a ceasefire to advance the peaceful resolution of a conflict, but instead give the actor an upper hand in the conflict (for example, by re-arming and repositioning forces or attacking an unsuspecting adversary), which creates bargaining problems that may make ceasefires less likely to be implemented and less likely to be durable if implemented.

So the fears of the naysayers are valid, and we should remember that. But…

Ceasefires may be intended to meet short-term limited needs (such as providing humanitarian aid), manage a conflict to make it less devastating, or advance efforts to peacefully resolve a dispute.

So I’m also right. And if the weight of the international community is put behind such efforts, they might come to fruition.

The operative question, then, is: why are so many political actors so unwilling to try?


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Is public opinion finally turning as Israel’s lies and atrocities come to light?

Rishi Sunak: “Netanyahu’s poodle” digs his heels in, during a Parliamentary debate. But how long can he ignore growing public opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza?

Rishi Sunak offered Israel unequivocal support in its “defence” against the Hamas attack of October 7 – a “defence” that has already been more than three times more deadly than the attack itself, while doing nothing to end any threat Hamas poses to that country.

He said he spoke for the British people. But there is growing evidence that, once again, he is speaking only for himself.

Here’s Peter Oborne to explain some of it:

Here’s SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn to explain that, in supporting Israeli war crimes, Sunak can only be speaking for himself. At the end of the clip, Sunak rises to repeat the falsehood that Israel is only defending itself. We can see that this is not true:

It seems the people of the UK are tired of hearing that Israel has a right to defend itself when the numbers coming out of Palestine are so horrific:

We want a ceasefire and we want efforts to resolve this crisis peacefully – and it seems clear that feeling for this is growing among our politicians:

The message isn’t getting through to Israel’s representatives, though. Tzipi Hotovely, that country’s far-right-wing Ambassador to the UK, told Piers Morgan that the UK was happy to bomb civilians in order to defeat Nazis, as if that justifies her country’s actions now.

She’s wrong, by the way. The bombing of Dresden was hugely controversial at the time and became more so after World War II. And morality in the UK has changed in the decades since, to the point where we would not do such a thing again.

We, as a nation, have grown. Why has Israel not?

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The apologists are still out in force, with Israel supporter Andrew Neil giving full-throated support to the latest reel of video clips to come from Tel Aviv, purportedly showing Hamas atrocities committed on October 7:

This Writer actually responded to his post, pointing out that it’s hard to believe a post like this when it starts with a lie. If these people were killed by Hamas, it wasn’t because they were Jewish but because they were Israeli settlers who had stolen Palestinian property (as that group would have seen it).

If this footage was taken on October 7, why was it not released immediately it was taken from the Hamas bodies? Israel was desperate to justify itself in the early days after the attack but resorted to lies instead. Even if it is real, the footage is hard to believe in this context.

Finally – and also on context – I asked: can we see some footage from IDF bodycams of what they’ve been doing to kill – what is it? – 250 Palestinians in the year up to October 7? Or has that all gone missing?

I wasn’t the only one asking the last question – although others were able to add more detail to it:

Here’s another response on similar lines:

We must remember, also, that Israeli propaganda about the way Hamas has treated Israeli citizens is being disproved with every hostage released by that organisation:

So we come back to the possibilities for the future. Jeremy Corbyn stood up in the House of Commons, demanded to know why the UK’s representative in the United Nations had been instructed to abstain on a call for a humanitarian ceasefire, and called for positive steps toward peace – but his words fell on deaf ears. Here are a couple of possible explanations for that:

Let us not forget that violence begets violence. What Israel is doing now will not bring an end to hostilities between that country and Palestinians – it will only make them worse. Israeli politicians know this, and are devastating the area anyway.

Meanwhile, in other countries, Israel’s aggression and accusations are more obviously untrue:

Control of the narrative is slipping away from Israel – and also from its supporters like Rishi Sunak.

If he doesn’t speak for the United Kingdom, then for whom is he speaking?

And isn’t it past time he was made to do what we want?


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Top law firm invites Mel Stride to start pension mediation for 50s women | Westminster Confidential

David Hencke’s ever-informative Westminster Confidential site provides this update on the struggle to get restitution for women who have been harmed by changes to the pension system:

One of London’s top law firms has written to Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, inviting him to agree to mediation talks to end the long suffering impasse on awarding compensation to the now 3.5 million 50s born women who had to wait another six years before they got their pension.

[A] report into the issue was published at the end of November and concluded that there was direct discrimination … women who were born from 1950 to 1960 had been singled out to wait for their pension while everyone else was unaffected.

It has also to be taken into account that 9.8m men were given 5 years free auto credits to retire 5 years early, aged 60, whilst the state pension of 3.8m 1950’s women was twice deferred, by stealth, and they were then coerced back to work for up to another 6 years having been denied the promised similar auto credits awarded to men.

The report [was hand-delivered] to Rishi Sunak at Downing Street just before it was published. It was also delivered to Robert Behrens, the Parliamentary Ombudsman, who is currently involved in a long inquiry into how much the women should be compensated after finding partial maladminstration.

It might be instructive to contrast this with another case of discrimination against women, that has been in the news recently; I refer to that of Birmingham City Council, which used a bonus scheme that unfairly benefited men more than women while it was run by a Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition and then was under no overal control, between 2004 and 2010.

After a court battle, the council was ordered to pay £760 million to settle equal pay claims – and attempting to comply has caused the council to declare (effective) bankruptcy. Tory MPs have made a big fuss of the fact that a council that is now run by Labour has been financially embarrassed, even though it was their party that caused the problem.

The UK government cannot go bankrupt; it can always issue currency to cover any spending it has to make (although there should be a balancing tax take, to counter inflation).

But, so far, it has resisted calls to compensate women harmed by the state pension changes, even though those changes were clearly discriminatory against them.

Hypocrisy? What gives the Tory government the right to avoid a responsibility that the law has thrust onto a local authority – with the enthusiastic support of Tory MPs?

Source: Exclusive: Top law firm writes to Mel Stride inviting him to start mediation talks on restitution for 50swomen | Westminster Confidential


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If RCN nurses are getting a pay deal they don’t support, what will it mean for their strike?

Steve Barclay: ask him to use any of the equipment behind him and he couldn’t. He’s only useful for punishing the people who can.

Is Steve Barclay trying to outflank the Royal College of Nursing?

It seems that, after talks with 14 health unions, he is going to impose a pay deal on more than a million NHS workers including ambulance workers, nurses, physios and porters,

The deal is a five per cent pay rise plus a one-off payment of at least £1,655 which This Writer understands is to raise overall pay for the last (2022-23) financial year.

From the way it’s being presented, the deal is also being imposed on the three unions that haven’t accepted it – including Unite (which has a limited mandate for strike action) and the RCN (which needs to ballot for more).

This leads to an obvious question:

What if the RCN (or the others) strike again and win a better deal?

Won’t that upset members of the other unions?

And isn’t that what Steve Barclay wants?

Tory philosophy can be summed up with the words “divide and rule”.

I reckon he’s hoping that the RCN – and the others – will be discouraged from going further by the possibility of losing solidarity with the other unions – or if they go ahead, strike, and get a better deal, the other unions will turn their collective back on them.

And that will probably mess up any collective action in the future, meaning the Tories can bully these unions to their hearts’ content.

It’s vile, verminous behaviour from a government that owes any credibility it kept during the Covid-19 crisis to the dedication of these professionals.

Each one of the staff who are now to receive a derogatory pay cut (in the face of higher-than 10 per cent inflation) is worth far, far more to the nation than Steve Barclay.

But, of course, in backwards Britain, the rewards are reversed:

There is a simple way out of the dilemma Barclay has set.

It is to remember that Steve Barclay is creating any problems – not the unions, their members or their leaders.

And one more thing, for people in England and Northern Ireland:

A vote against the Conservatives (and/or their allies) during the local elections on Thursday is a vote in support of the health unions.


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A ‘fair and reasonable’ pay offer for nurses? You’ll get psittacosis listening to these Tory parrots!

Mark Harper: like a parrot, he’s repeated endlessly that the Tory pay cut for nurses is “fair and reasonable”. You’ll need a nurse to treat you for psittacosis after listening too much to him!

Tory ministers have been doing the media rounds, telling us how “fair and reasonable” their latest real-terms pay cut for nurses is.

Watch the clip of Mark Harper, sitting on his massive ministerial salary (that has risen at a rate within one per cent of the rate of inflation) and trying to convince Sky’s Sophie Ridge that a pay rise that’s half inflation is “decent”:

Now listen to the ever-brilliant Peter Stefanovic, telling us the facts that people like Harper don’t want us to know.

But still the Tories adhere to their “Big Lie” philosophy – tell a lie often enough and enough people will believe it.

Psittacosis, also known as parrot fever, is an infectious disease that people can contract from the tropical avians, with flu-like symptoms accompanied by a kind of pneumonia.

The most anybody can expect to get from listening to these Tory parrots is a hefty dose of that!


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Barclay’s lawsuit against striking nurses is just one example of his contempt for the NHS

Steve Barclay: he holds NHS staff in contempt, even though he’s surrounded by kit that he can’t make work – and they can.

It’s as though NHS employees – doctors, nurses or whoever – are the children of an abusive parent.

And Health Secretary Steve Barclay’s mistreatment of (among others) nurses has not gone unnoticed.

So the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing has condemned as “disgraceful” his decision to “bully” nurses into submission with legal action against their next two-day strike.

Her response echoes that of an abused family member who has taken too much and refuses to accept any more…

The leader of the Royal College of Nursing has said a legal attempt by the health secretary to block next weekend’s strike in England is “frightening for democracy and very frightening for trade unionism”.

Pat Cullen, general secretary of the RCN, said it was “disgraceful” that Steve Barclay was attempting to thwart the strike via the courts, and said nurses would “not be bullied into silence”.

“We have instructed our legal counsel and we will stand up for nursing. This is about standing up not just for nursing but for trade unionism and for democracy,” she told the Observer.

“It’s utterly disgraceful that he [Barclay] would prefer to use money to challenge nurses than to pay them, at a time when those nurses are struggling to pay their bills. He is using public funding, patients’ money, to challenge nurses through the court.”

She added that a claim by Barclay that the government’s legal action sought to protect nurses who could “otherwise be asked to take part in unlawful activity that could in turn put their professional registration at risk” was a “blatant threat”. “He is trying to frighten nursing staff. That registration is their livelihood,” she said.

It’s actually insulting. Barclay is playing the ‘kindly uncle’ character, who fakes concern for youngsters in his charge while actually subjecting them to harm.

Sadly, his attitude is rubbing off on members of the general public, who are also starting to treat NHS staff as government property, in the same way some children have to comply with parental wishes (whether they are benign or not – and in this case they’re malign).

And what’s the upshot of all this abuse?

Let’s skip across to see what’s happening to doctors:

Like a child suffering mental health problems as a result of living in an abusive household?

You may be thinking that the comparison is false. Doctors and nurses are, after all, highly-trained professionals who could merrily move out to any other health organisation in this or other countries.

But the UK’s National Health Service has an emotional hold over almost everybody in the UK (Tory MPs and private health executives/shareholders excepted). It inspires almost familial loyalty in that respect.

That is a great strength in retaining staff – but also part of the problem because it gives Tories carte blanche to cut pay and otherwise abuse staff, which leads to the mental health problems that we’re seeing too.

It is vital to point out how this demonstrates the contempt in which the Tories in general – and Barclay in particular – hold NHS staff.

Without that understanding, it would be hard to understand why the Tories are obstructing pay negotiations the way they are.

Source: Nurses’ leader blasts Steve Barclay over ‘disgraceful’ use of legal action to stop strike | Nursing | The Guardian


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Health Secretary won’t go to mediator over junior doctor strike – report

Steve Barclay: he doesn’t know how any of this equipment works and he is attacking the people who do, while the UK’s medical patients go without treatment.

This looks very bad for the Tory government.

The BMA, which represents junior doctors, supports mediation via ACAS. The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges has intervened to call for it.

But Steve Barclay refuses to accept it – according to The Times. And, unlike the doctors, he wants to impose preconditions on any talks. Why?

Is that really it? Barclay’s afraid that a mediator will oppose him and side with the doctors?

If so, then the cat’s out of the bag and he’ll look bad, whatever he does now.


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