Double Down Newswatch provides insightful weekly briefing

CAMPAIN wants the Palestine Solidarity movement to adopt a coordinated media strategy rather than each entity (PSC, British Palestine Project, Independent Media outlets, Jewish Voice for Liberation etc.), all of which do brilliant work, acting in an isolated manner. Our key objective should be to get through to tens of millions of British people who are scarcely aware of Palestine and the Middle East and who do not even think of campaigning on the streets or boycotting firms complicit with the genocide.

While the task is immense some important components of the strategy are already in place.

Notably we applaud Richard Saunders who, on May 6th, launched a series of approximately weekly bulletins under the heading of Double Down News Watch containing news from the Independent Media outlets that remains unseen on the mainstream. Each bulletin lasts less than an hour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kI9plI4l_Y

The first episode of May 6th contained a host of topical items including:

• a former Israeli intelligence officer blowing the whistle on Israel raping Palestinians with dogs

• the absence of prominent mainstream coverage of attacks on Mosques and the stabbing of an Iranian in Whitehall

• the hypocrisy of Trevor Philips (of Sky News) pressurmg guests to advocate for the crack-down on pro-Palestinian demonstrations

  
  

This was followed by further excellent episodes on May 15th and May 22nd. The strength of these bulletins is that they help systematise the distribution of newsworthy items for which we would otherwise have to search far and wide. They are excellent for sharing with friends and family, helping them become acquainted with important affairs of which the mainstream media fails to inform the public.

The strength of these bulletins is that they help systematise the distribution of newsworthy items for which we would otherwise have to search far and wide. They are excellent for sharing with friends and family, helping them become acquainted with important affairs of which the mainstream media fails to inform the public.

Sanders is hardly a patsy for left/liberal causes, and will raise difficult issues that other comentators might avoid. This was evident in his interview with Green Party deputy leader Mothin Ali, starting at 51 minutes into his May 15th episode, suggesting that the Green Party had not properly thought through some of its policies and actions. These included a policy of fixing rents at affordable levels that could choke off the supply rentable property, and the Party's suspension of Tony Greenstein, about which CAMPAIN had recently complained.

As a basic point of principle, asked Sanders, is there any way that the Greens are going to avoid a situation where non-Jews tell Jewish people they are antisemites?.

Mothin Ali responded by affirming that we are not going down the route of purging people from the Party. We wait to see how this transpires.

From 1.26 minutes into the May 22nd episode, Sanders explores recordings revealing a sordid plot to destabilise leftward leaning regimes like those of Mexico and Colombia that will not follow the wishes of the USA. Israel is presented as a key actor in this plot along with the USA, and right-wing Latin American regimes .

A central figure is Juan Orlando Hernandez, former President of Honduras, jailed for 45 years on drug smuggling charges and suddenly freed by Trump, allegedly in exchange for a payment (or bribe) from supporters of Israel. At the end of this section, Sanders reveals that the BBC recently interviewed Hernandez, but asked him nothing about the recordings! US involvement in this case is relevant to my blog about Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, a figure who apparently discriminates among narco-linked states in Latin America depending on whether they are alligned with the US government.

At 17.33 minutes into the same episode, Sanders interviews Paul Holden, author of The Fraud, showing how Labour Together spy scandal reaches to the heart of the Labour Party. It is difficult to believe that Keir Starmer was unaware of this.

From 32.46 minutes, he interviews a former FBI agent and Anthony Lowenstein, the Australian Jewish author of The Palestine Laboratory, asking the question whether Iran is behind attacks on Jewish property in the UK and Australia, as claimed by the police in these countries? Or could there be other explanations including the possibility that Israel had been fomenting false-flag operations?

Neither Sanders nor his interviewees had sufficient evidence to make any definitive pronoucement on this topic, but neither had the British nor the Australian police provided evidence to support their claims. It is to Sander's credit that he was prepared to pose the question as to who was really responsible, a question that mainstream journalists have failed to ask.

We expect nothing less of our journalists.

By 25th May, the third episode had achieved nearly 350,000 views. We would love to see a mainstream broadcaster provide a home for Double Down News Watch and further boost circulation.