Kernow Damo

Right, so Donald Trump's Iran ceasefire has now reached the completely normal and peaceful stage where the United States bombs Iran again.

Not metaphorically. Not in sanctions language. Not with one of those anaemic State Department statements where everyone pretends "deep concern" is a policy. Actually bombs it.

A target screen. A blast. Smoke. And "Unclassified" stamped across the top of it.

This is the deal, apparently. This is the peace framework. Paperwork in one hand, airstrikes in the other, and the rest of us meant to sit here nodding along as though a ceasefire with bombing footage attached is a diplomatic breakthrough.

So let’s not let them walk us into their nonsense version of events here. This is not "tensions in the region." That phrase does so much washing-up for empire, doesn't it? Tensions. As if missiles turn tense all by themselves. As if Hormuz woke up in a mood. As if nobody put a target on a screen and pressed the button.

What we are actually watching is Trump's Iran deal meeting its inevitable conclusion given the state of Lebanon and Iran’s red lines over it, and Trump’s insistence that the Strait of Hormuz is international waters.

So the US says it is responding. It says Iran went after commercial shipping. It says the targets were Iranian military infrastructure, coastal radar, missile and drone sites, with Hormuz sitting underneath the whole thing as the pressure point.

Right, so Israel’s latest Lebanon withdrawal apparently lasted about ten minutes. Ten minutes. You can boil pasta longer than that. You can sit through a Keir Starmer speech longer than that, although frankly nobody should have to, by minute seven consciousness will be touch and go.

But for about ten minutes, Lebanon was told Israel had begun pulling back. President Joseph Aoun was reportedly informed that Israel had started withdrawing from part of the buffer area as a goodwill gesture and jumped the shark a bit in celebrating that news. Cue everyone pretending that Israel, after months of bombing, occupation, security belts and freedom-of-action demands, had suddenly discovered the concept of leaving somewhere it wasn’t supposed to be.

But then everything fell apart, because Israeli sources denied it. Lebanese sources then denied it. The story started wobbling almost as soon as it was reported. It was less a withdrawal and more of a diplomatic party trick. A vanishing act. Now you see it, now you don’t. A pullback with the structural integrity of wet cardboard. A goodwill gesture that apparently needed a witness protection programme before anyone could verify it had happened.

Israel and Lebanon are supposedly in talks, but clearly anything but on the same page, or even having the same conversation. Washington is trying to manage a ceasefire that Israel abuses with impunity, talking up arrangements like “pilot zones,” “security arrangements,” “phased redeployment” and “freedom of action.”

But strip away all of that inane jargon and what are we actually looking at?

Israel saying withdrawal while staying. Israel saying security while holding Lebanese land. Israel saying ceasefire while seemingly having no grasp of the concept.

Right, so let’s start here.

Start with a school because when Israeli forces are inside a girls’ school, and then a UN-mandated inquiry turns round and says Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted, it all takes a decided turn for the sinister.

Israel would very much like this story filed in a dusty old drawer marked “UN bias”, because of course they would.

UN says something about Gaza? Bias. UN says something about Palestinian children? Bias. UN says something about hospitals, maternity wards, detention, starvation, schools, aid blockades, children killed and children injured? Still bias, apparently.

A magic word. Like diplomatic Febreze. Just spray “bias” over the room and hope nobody notices the smell of pi** still filtering through.

But the problem this time is that the report is landing with footage. It lands on the ceasefire story Israel wants everyone to accept – their version of it of course - as if a ceasefire announcement is a moral washing machine and all the blood goes in one side and comes out clean on the other.

That is the frame they want, but the frame here is different.

This is a report about Palestinian children specifically, so the first thing you need to understand is that children are not just the casualties in this story. They are literally the case itself.

Right, so Andy Burnham’s great Labour reset has barely got its shoes under the table and it’s already imploding on him, but then how many Labour leaders – it looks like he’s going to get the gig unchallenged at this point, so we mighty as well get used to referring to him as such – are going to repeat the word change without meaning to actually deliver any?

New face, new tone, new start, new path, final chance to change Britain, all the lovely campaign-board vocabulary they roll out only for a Starmer clone with an up north accent and less brylcreem to come out from behind the curtain.

But this is the useful thing about a reset: you do not test it by the speech. You test it by the people brought into the room afterwards and of course a lot of the talk right now is the inane speculation as to who would be in his cabinet – does it really matter? They had to create a seat for Burnham to walk into because apparently there isn’t enough talent amongst the 411 Labour MPs to find another leader amongst, the consequences of Starmer’s candidacy stitch ups.

And neither do we need another Burnham biography either. Nobody needs “King of the North: the origin story” with soft lighting and a tram stop. All we need to know about Burnham is that he is being relentlessly sold as the alternative to Starmer. The grown-up reboot. The man who can make Labour sound human again after years of managerial cruelty with flags stuck up it a*se.

Fine. Then let’s test this reset...

Right, so Netanyahu says Israel still has a free hand in Lebanon. Full freedom. No restrictions. No limits. The IDF can move as it likes, strike as it likes, stay as long as it likes, because apparently southern Lebanon is now just an patio extension north of the Israeli border with a few extra craters. Lovely.

And that was the line he wanted to sell. Strong leader. Clear directive. Security zone. Residents of the north. All the usual soundbites dragged back onto the stage and arranged to make occupation look like just a little bit of housekeeping.

But then one of his own rivals comes along and points to the bit Netanyahu didn’t not want discussed: the bit that shows his hands being tied as he declares full freedom.

Because this is the thing about boasting. It only works while nobody checks your homework. Netanyahu says no restrictions. That gets contradicted by one particular rival and then southern Lebanon gives you the truth via the only translation that really matters: smoke, strikes, damage, fear, people living under the thing Netanyahu wants to call freedom.

That is not the picture being sold to the Israeli public. But then one of Netanyahu’s own rivals comes along and says, hold on a minute.

So let’s start with that.

Right, so that is not a resistance spokesman. That is not an Iranian negotiator. That’s a big orange wombat – waste of money, breath and time. However, if you can claw through some the digression there, an actual salient point was being made, in that Trump has looked at Israel’s ongoing military aggression in Lebanon, all in defiance of his Iran deal of course and said in effect: you keep flattening buildings and yet you still cannot finish the job.

And of course we know that, we know Netanyahu want’s Lebanon separate from the deal, or at the very least so that it doesn’t apply to him, but it’s not happening when Trump is literally telling him you didn’t have to knock down buildings in Beirut, which is itself a confession given he’s the one arming Israel, because even he is now openly admitting in effect that the targets are not military.

Netanyahu wanted Lebanon as a loophole.

But the problem with loopholes is that somebody eventually finds them.

And Iran were never going to let this one remain open, when Israel leaving Lebanon is one of their red lines.

Leaving will expose weakness, will expose Netanyahu to being tugged by the Washington leash. Will see Mr Security have to acquiesce to what Iran wants after 30 years of wanting to force regime change there and the resistance from within his utterly bats**t administration was always going to be obvious. As Iran gets its way, his own ministers go rogue:

Right, so Keir Starmer has finally got the message then.

Good. Only about six years too late.

And I know you are not supposed to say that too loudly on the day they finally show some emotion and choke at the lectern. Well, I’m not the mainstream media, I’m not going to go about eulogising this guy. Even his resignation speech wasn’t that original, it was like Theresa May’s all over again in some parts word for word. But we’re supposed to do the whole solemn respectful ness aren’t we? Public service. Difficult decisions. A life of duty. Thank you, Sir Keir, for your managerial machinations and your tireless commitment to making everyone’s life slightly worse than it even was before, and that was bad enough.

So no, I’m not doing that, especially when he decided to make his leaving speech just like so many of his others – a pack of lies.

Before he even opened his mouth, the country gave him the review.

We heard applause. I daresay many more people were clapping too, especially after the bit he said he was finally going.

A prime minister comes out to resign and people clap. How detested must you be? You can imagine those assembled, although some were of course clapping in admiration were also doing so with relief.

That is Britain now. Not grateful. Not moved. Not devastated by the fall of a great statesman, because he was anything but. Clapping because the man is finally going. Clapping because after two years of cruelty with a tie on, of cowardice with a flag behind it, of Zionist boot-polishing dressed up as “global leadership,” people have had enough of him.

Right, so get a load of this guy. If you aren’t aware of who this little sausage is, this is a chap by the name of Danny Danon, he pops up on TV interviews from time to time as a sometime go to motormouth of the Israeli regime – an excuse maker who is more than happy to raise his voice and shout down other people as so many Zionists seem to treat as their standard media tactic when someone dares breathe in the wrong direction with regards to their states genocidal tendencies. He is point of fact though, the Israeli envoy to the United Nations and in one of his most recent outings, he decided the best way to respond to a report on conflict-related sexual violence was to demonstrate all of the emotional restraint of a toddler that has just been denied a biscuit.

That was a formal UN meeting. A serious subject. Officials across the room. The report there on the table. Allegations that require seriousness, evidence, scrutiny, care

And what did Israel’s man at the UN bring?

He brought volume, because he has an ego inflated to 500PSI and it needed an outlet. He brought the finger-wagging. He brought the full “how dare you mention this awful thing that you’ve gathered evidence against us over” routine.

And of course he had to make it personal too against the Special Rapporteur who had compiled it, in this case that being the Special Rapporteur for Children and Armed Conflict, the Maltese diplomat Vanessa Frazier, because once he made it personal, that instigated the pushback.

At the end of the day though, as a professional, as a representative of your country, if you are confronted with a damaging report, you have choices. You can challenge it. You can answer it. You can present counter-evidence. You can dispute the process. You can say the report is wrong and then show people why.

What you cannot do, if you want to look like the serious party with a serious point to make, is turn on the official trying to raise a point of order and tell her to be quiet.

Right, so Netanyahu’s Lebanon front has just done the one thing it absolutely was not supposed to do.

It left some proof.

Actual footage. Actual losses. Actual pressure. All being applied to Israel and not the other way around, The sort of thing that stops being a line in an IDF military update about being all moral and specific when they’ve just levelled an entire block – the sort of thing that ends up becoming evidence in somebody else’s argument.

And that was the risk Netanyahu was trying to dodge. Keep Lebanon active, keep the troops in, keep the pressure on, keep the genocidally loopy ministers holding the reins of power over him howling for more, but still let the tangerine toddler passing himself off as President of the US sell an Iran deal as if the region had been neatly folded, ironed and put away in a drawer. The front was supposed to stay useful to Netanyahu without becoming inconvenient for him. Loud enough to serve Israel’s purposes, quiet enough not to wreck Trump’s sales pitch.

As if he was ever going to pull such a stunt off.

Hezbollah had the cameras rolling courtesy of their drone warfare, the casualty ledger has shifted alarmingly against Israel, Iran as a consequence has brought ships into the picture, and after it was apparently cancelled, JD Vance is on his way to Switzerland looking like the man sent to explain why the “stable deal” is now arriving with smoke damage and too much charring around the edges to have been just a little accident.

Right, so Benjamin Netanyahu has apparently won again.

Amazing, isn’t it?

Every few days, Israel wins so hard that another town in Lebanon starts smoking, another ceasefire needs hosing down, another American official has to pretend this is all part of the plan, and another poll appears showing that even Israelis are looking at Netanyahu’s victory parade and asking why the wheels have come off his float.

This time though, the win Israel is claiming to have is over Iran.

Israel won. Netanyahu stood tall. Trump got his deal. The region was being stabilised, allegedly.

And then Lebanon walked into the room covered in dust, smoke and bits of somebody’s roof. The poll isn’t much of a win actually.

Eleven percent. Just 11% of Israelis believe Netanyahu beat Iran, along with 71% of them believing Trump is going to sell them out to Iran.

That is how they want to spin this, that is how it has been packaged. It takes airstrikes, rubble, shattered homes and a ceasefire Netanyahu and Co are desperate to wriggle out of - the latest example lasting for a grand total of – and I’m not joking – 5 minutes, and squeezes the whole thing into a narrative so soft you could use it to wrap crockery. This is the latest Israel victory claim getting dragged back to the scene of the crime and being found wanting, because it is spinning a win out of getting their arses handed to them and all for Netanyahu’s benefit.