Israel: To Support, Or Not

[Orange Alert]

Pre-planned, stage managed shows for the agenda - 2020.

 

 

and 2023.

 

 

Are people still brainwashed to believe in this garbage.

[pi3141]

BRENDAN O'NEILL argues far too many in the West failed the moral test posed by October 7

 

The Middle East stands on the brink of all-out war.

 

Following Iran's barrage of 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday night, the world is holding its breath. How will Israel respond? Will the US and ­Britain be drawn into a confrontation with the mullahs of Tehran?

 

civilians from the south of the country continues, the aerial bombardment on both sides of the border with Israel intensifies.

The diplomatic world clamours for a ceasefire, but neither the Iran-backed Islamist terror group nor the Israel Defence Forces show any sign of backing down.

One year after Hamas's October 7 attacks on Israel, things feel more volatile than ever.

 

escalating. So is hostility towards Israel, which is increasingly viewed as a pariah state in ­fashionable progressive circles.

Thanks to the twisted mentality that now ­prevails in much of the public discourse in the West – as I reveal in my new book about the response to the Hamas atrocity of October 7, After The Pogrom – the overwhelming ­preponderance of moral opprobrium is reserved for Israel.

 

How dare they, rail the bien pensants, retaliate against the barrage of Hezbollah rockets that has rained down relentlessly on their territory for months?

 

The 

correct-think mob even accuses Israel of provoking Iran's missile attack this week – overlooking that Iran has been bombing and ­massacring Israelis for years through its proxy armies of Hezbollah and Hamas. Indeed, this week, Iran's 85-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, lauded the October 7 atrocity as a ­legitimate action by the Palestinian people.

The grotesque double standards – where ­violent, misogynistic racists bent on creating a barbarous theocracy are hailed as freedom fighters, while the only democratic country in the Middle East is denounced as an engine of lethal oppression – have existed for decades.

 

But they were thrown into sharp relief by Hamas's assault on Israel last year, the most deadly single strike against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

 

The Hamas incursion not only triggered the chain of events that led to the present conflicts in Gaza and ­Lebanon, but also unleashed an extraordinary wave of anti-Israeli bigotry and venom across the West.

At times, it felt as if our ­civilisation had been gripped by insanity. Basic morality had been inverted.

 

Radical activists who had cried 'Believe all women' ­during the #' ­during the #MeToo tumult, overnight became sceptics about claims of Hamas terrorists raping Jewish women.

 

Strident diversity ­officials now began to bleat about 'the ­context' when asked why they were silent about anti-Jewish ­racist abuse.

 

the wake of October 7, Israel became the most hated nation on earth. The sheer loathing of it was out of all proportion to its size and influence.

 

It is almost exactly a year since the Hamas attack exposed the moral decadence in large parts of our society. October 8, 2023, ought to have been a day of shining ethical clarity for humankind, given the horror that had unfolded over the preceding 24 hours as Hamas embarked on its killing spree.

 

No one was spared, not ­children, not women, not the elderly. Rockets were fired at moving cars. Grenades were thrown into bomb shelters in which families had taken ­refuge. A music festival was turned into a site of rape and slaughter.

 

More than 1,100 people were killed in total, 796 of them civilians. Shocking though it was, even this death toll failed to capture the full depravity of the massacre. The assailants took glee in their sadism, filming their violence and sharing it online.

Not content with their bloodbath in Israel, they also took 250 hostages, whom they dragged back to Gaza and then paraded, bruised and bloodied, through the streets. This was more than terrorism or mass murder.

It was, in the words of ­German novelist Herta ­Muller, 'a total derailment from civilisation'. The Jewish nation found itself subjected to the very butchery it was built to withstand. The state to which Jews had fled to escape the pogroms had now experienced one of its own.

All this should have awoken the world's conscience. Yet Israel waited in vain for the young and educated of the West to rally to its side.

 

From the moment that news of the Hamas attack began to be broadcast, the voices of equivocation and excuse-making could be heard. Some said Israel had provoked the atrocities by their mistreatment of the Gazan population.

 

Just as they now say Israel provoked Iran by attacking Hezbollah – even though ­Hezbollah has fired rockets at Israel almost every day since October 7.

Others claimed Hamas's October 7 assault was a just response to Israel's ­colonial-style occupation of Palestinian land. Referring to the mass killings at the music festival, Ashok Kumar, a senior lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London, tweeted: 'Sometimes partying on stolen land next to a concentration camp has consequences.'

 

One disturbing opinion poll in the US found 60 per cent of 18 to 24-year-old Americans felt Palestinian grievances justified Hamas's action.

 

Perhaps worse than the ­specious justifications were the expressions of jubilation, which started even as the massacre was still underway.

 

Today is a day of celebration,' said Rivkah Brown of the Left-wing media outlet Novara on October 7, utterly dismissive of concerns about civilian death. 'The struggle for freedom is rarely ­bloodless and we should not apologise for it,' she said.

And this perverse mood of exhilaration spilled out onto the streets, epitomised by a large ­demonstration on October 9 outside the Israeli embassy in London, where, according to one report: 'Arabic music was blasting, people were linking arms and dancing.'

Such scenes of elation were also accompanied by expressions of intimidation and acts of violence. At Birmingham University, protesters ­displayed a banner saying: 'Zionists off our campus', a slogan that was part of an ugly atmosphere in Britain in the weeks after October 7 that saw anti-Semitic hate crimes rise by 1,350 per cent.

 

Jewish schools and shops were attacked. At the Wiener Historical Holocaust Library in central ­London, the oldest such institution in the world, graffiti in support of Gaza was daubed at the entrance.

 

The mix of crude anti-Semitism and glorification of terrorism was also on display in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations which have become such a feature of cities in Britain and elsewhere in the West since October 7.

The relentless nature of these anti-Israeli protests, along with moronic chants like 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free', again highlights how deranged and morally perverted this cause has become.

Together with the wave of hate crimes, the demonstrations served to promote the ­internationalisation of Hamas's reactionary ideology, where the Jewish state is singled out for ­special contempt as the source of the world's ills, with the Jewish people held to be guilty by association.

Indeed, no nation provokes the wrath of the West's activist class as much as Israel.

Thousands can perish in Syria's civil war, or in Saudi Arabia's Western-backed offensive in Yemen, or in Myanmar or the Ethiopian region of Tigray, and not one foot will touch a street in our cities in protest.

Yet the minute Israel takes action against the terrorists on its borders, the marchers will be out with their placards, screeching about genocide.

 

The very existence of Israel excites fury on a visceral level that transcends logic. It seems to me that Israel has become a kind of sin-bearer for the woke warriors of the West, a totem of everything they find objectionable in Western society, culture and history.

 

From racism and poverty to ­military aggression, the Jewish nation is said to be at the centre of a vast web of global oppression.

 

­Jewish population is of North African or Middle Eastern descent.

Just as fallacious is the common description of Israel as a 'colonialist' power when, in reality, it was born from an anti-colonial movement against British rule in Palestine in the late 1940s. This inconvenient truth does not suit the agenda of the haters, of course.

 

Even more grotesque is the ­parallel drawn by pro-­Palestinian activists between Israel and the South Africa of the apartheid era. Yet there is no comparison. Israel is an advanced democracy whose Arab population has the right to vote and whose Supreme Court includes Arab justices.

 

The entire process of denigrating Israel is riddled with lies and contradictions. In their fulminations against the Jewish state, the progressive activists blather about 'social justice' for Gaza.

 

Yet homosexual relations are illegal in Gaza, with the result that gay people face persecution and torture there, a reality that makes the London-based pressure group 'Queers for Palestine' look like a bunch of deluded idiots.

 

Nor is there any justice for women under Hamas's brutal Islamist dogma, which imposes widespread discrimination against them. According to one recent study, women in Gaza have one of the world's lowest rates of ­participation in the labour market, at just 20 per cent.

 

Outspoken Western feminists, who see dangerous misogyny in a touch on the knee or a risque joke, fall silent in the face of mass rapes by Hamas fighters, because – in the woke playbook – Jews are the oppressors and Palestinians the victims.

 

Apart from the charity called Jewish Women's Aid, not one group in England that focuses on sexual violence against women condemned the sex crimes of Hamas. In fact, the radical organisation Sisters Uncut actively challenged the reports of abuse, claiming that there was a risk of stirring up Islamophobia.

 

The theory that Israelis invented or exaggerated the incidence of sexual assaults for their own ­political ends fits the anti-Semitic stereotype that portrays Jews as cynical, cunning liars, continually manipulating events for their own political advantage.

 

That belief in the Jews' inherent dishonesty also lies behind the lurid conspiracy theory that Israel fabricated much of the attack on October 7 in order to provide a pretext for pulverising Gaza.

 

Its an approach that could be called 'Pogrom denial', a smaller version of the vile practice of ­'Holocaust denial' which has been central to modern anti-Semitism.

 

While few of the Western pro-Palestinian brigade go so far as to question the reality of the Holocaust, they undermine its central importance to the Jews and to humanity in other ways.

 

One is to scold Israel for using its traumatic legacy as a stick with which to beat Hezbollah and Hamas, even though both groups are built on the desire to wipe the Jewish state off the face of the earth.

 

Another is to challenge the Jewish people's moral ownership of the Holocaust by robbing the Nazis' genocide of its racial specificity, instead presenting Hitler's policy as a generalised act of extremist wickedness.

 

Dressed up as a step towards greater inclusion, it is a process that downgrades the unique suffering of the Jews.

Other hypocrisies are glaring, such as the habit of self-­regarding activists to don the Keffiyeh, originally a scarf worn by Bedouin tribesmen but now an emblem of solidarity with Palestine.

Yet these are often the same people who shriek about 'cultural appropriation' if a white person wears a sombrero or has their hair braided.

Moreover, in a rich irony, few of the Keffiyehs are made in ­Palestine but rather are ­manufactured in China using forced Uyghur labour.

 

These double standards are embodied in the figure of Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader and now independent MP for Islington. He likes to see himself as a feminist ally, supporter of gay rights, advocate of democracy, and champion of the oppressed.

Yet in his hatred of Israel, he has ended up colluding with violent misogyny, racism, homophobia and authoritarianism.

 

Tragically, there are too many in the West who have taken the same route as Corbyn. That helps to explain why we failed collectively the moral test of October 7.

 

Israel deserved better.

 

Link - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13926741/BRENDAN-ONEILL-argues-far-West-failed-moral-test-posed-October-7.html

[pi3141]

From Reddit-

 

What do Palestinians themselves think of Queers for Palestine?
Learning about the conflict:

Enough ink has been spilled by Westeners on this topic.

Camp A says ‘queers and Palestinians have solidarity, they share the same struggle’

 

Camp B says ‘you’re out of your mind, don’t you know they would push you off a roof given half the chance?’

 

But I want to know, if possible, what Palestinians THEMSELVES think of Queers for Palestine.

 

Response - 

 

Queers for anything? OK awesome I’m for it. Love the LGBTQ community.

 

But for Palestine? You want to support a nation that is calling for the genocide of another people (who BTW almost were exterminated in the 1940s), meanwhile that nation would string you up naked and throw stones at you until you were dead.

 

That’s not pushing the envelope that is childish lunacy.

 

Are younger folks so desperate to be part of something or get their viral moment that they will go along with something as absurd?

 

War is very very complicated but it’s like Gen Z and Gen Alpha can only see one way or the other.

 

Link - 

https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/1ds8bkk/what_do_palestinians_themselves_think_of_queers/

[pi3141]

Huh? ‘Queers for Palestine’? Really?
05/09/2024
 

I recently attended a rally against anti-semitism. Since Hamas’ attack on Israeli concert goers and kibbutzim occurred on Oct. 7, 2023, I wanted to support Israel in general and my Jewish friends.

 

I knew there were LGBTQ people who side with Palestinians and Hamas, but one transwoman there, accented in a black-and-white-checkered keffiyeh, and wearing a surgical mask, held a placard reading that “no trans woman would be free until Palestine was free.” She’s not alone. Go to any campus ruckus against Israel today and you will see the flag of Palestine accompanied by the rainbow banner and chants of “From the River to the Sea …” 

 

Lenin once described useful idiots but it takes a special kind of cognitive dissonance to ignore the evidence out there that Palestine is not a safe place for anyone LGBTQ. 

 

I doubt that Queers for Palestine know very much about the history of the people they’re agitating for. 

 

Do they know that Palestinians staged pogroms against Jewish immigrants from 1920 through 1929, burning Brits and Jews along the way? Do they know the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (a relative of Yasser Arafat) toured concentration camps during WWII?

 

In a 2001 book entitled Hitler and the Holocaust the historian Robert Wistrich outlines the visit to Germany of the Grand Mufti, meeting with Hitler and the SS. You don’t really think they were exchanging falafel recipes, do you?

 

Do Queers for Palestine know of Arab nations and Palestinian rejections of peace offers in 1937, 1948, and 2000? 

Speaking with many young transmen and transwomen today, I get the feeling they think history started once they were born. So many dismiss the idea that Jewish people belong in Israel as much as the Palestinians do. Queers for Palestine, however, conflate Zionism with colonialism, when in reality Israel is more a project of homecoming and national rebirth, a return that has been nearly 2,000 years in the making. 

 

It is not just The Bible that articulates Judaism’s place in the region. One example, Empires of Trust, by the historian Thomas Madden, describes three major Jewish revolts against Roman rule in the years 66-79 AD, 115 AD, 132 AD, and numerous minor insurgencies clear up to the year 200.

 

With each revolt, more Jewish identity was stamped out. The temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Jews were thrown out of Judea by the Romans, provincial boundaries redrawn, renamed, and repopulated. But alienation from place did not stop the yearning for the homeland. Indeed so strong was the hope, the wish, the ache for Israel, that sometime in the 1300s Jews started adding L’Shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim (Next Year in Jerusalem) at the end of Passover Seders.

 

How are LGBTQ people really treated in the Palestinian Authority (PA) and under Hamas? According to the LGBTQ Human Dignity Trust, a colonial era British Mandate law remains in effect in the PA. Under those sections, sexual violations can be punished with up to 14 years in prison (for those wonks who want to get into the weeds, reference Sections 152 (1) (b) (c) and 152 (2) (b) of the British Mandate criminal code, as well as PA draft penal codes Articles 258 and 263).

 

While Human Dignity Trust reports the anti-LGBTQ laws remain in effect, they are not rigidly enforced. But Amnesty International reports that threats and attacks against gays receive scant investigation or adjudication. As late as 2019, the PA announced that LGBTQ groups were forbidden to meet in the West Bank when the Al-Qaws LGBT Palestinian group wanted to hold a conference in Nablus. The PA said, “[LGBTQ] are harmful to the higher values and ideals of Palestinian society.” And in October 2022, 25- year-old Ahmed Abu Murkhiyeh, a gay Palestinian, was beheaded after he was discovered to be seeking asylum in Israel. It’s pretty telling when a Palestinian is compelled to apply for asylum in Israel.

 

Maybe it is truly unsafe for Gays in Palestine. While only 8% of Palestinians approved of honor killings in a June 2019 poll conducted by the BBC Arabic News, it also revealed that only 5% of Palestinians accept LGBTQ people. 

 

In his 2020 book, Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique, Professor Sa’ed Atshan of Swarthmore College links the LGBTQ struggle against homophobia and transphobia to the struggle for Palestine. Last November in an article in them, Dr. Atshan could only muster a tepid explanation of Hamas’s attacks of Oct. 7, explaining that while it was a horror, the Israeli dead should be seen in the context of the cumulative asymmetry of casualties between Israelis and Palestinians over the span of the conflict. 

 

The article mentioned in them was entitled “Why Queer Solidarity with Palestine is Not ‘Chickens for KFC.’” I don’t know. It certainly sounds that way to me.

 

–Veronica Zerrer is the author of “Memoirs of a Cold Warrior, a Novel.” She is retired from the US Army and active in the local LGBTQ community. In 2023, she was appointed to the California Veterans Board by Gov. Newsom. She can be reached at [email protected].

 

 

Link - https://lgbtqsd.news/huh-queers-for-palestine-really/

 

 

 

Edited October 5, 2024 by pi3141

[Campion]

1 hour ago, pi3141 said:

BRENDAN O'NEILL argues far too many in the West failed the moral test posed by October 7

 

The Middle East stands on the brink of all-out war.

 

Following Iran's barrage of 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday night, the world is holding its breath. How will Israel respond? Will the US and ­Britain be drawn into a confrontation with the mullahs of Tehran?

 

civilians from the south of the country continues, the aerial bombardment on both sides of the border with Israel intensifies.

The diplomatic world clamours for a ceasefire, but neither the Iran-backed Islamist terror group nor the Israel Defence Forces show any sign of backing down.

One year after Hamas's October 7 attacks on Israel, things feel more volatile than ever.

 

escalating. So is hostility towards Israel, which is increasingly viewed as a pariah state in ­fashionable progressive circles.

Thanks to the twisted mentality that now ­prevails in much of the public discourse in the West – as I reveal in my new book about the response to the Hamas atrocity of October 7, After The Pogrom – the overwhelming ­preponderance of moral opprobrium is reserved for Israel.

 

How dare they, rail the bien pensants, retaliate against the barrage of Hezbollah rockets that has rained down relentlessly on their territory for months?

 

The 

correct-think mob even accuses Israel of provoking Iran's missile attack this week – overlooking that Iran has been bombing and ­massacring Israelis for years through its proxy armies of Hezbollah and Hamas. Indeed, this week, Iran's 85-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, lauded the October 7 atrocity as a ­legitimate action by the Palestinian people.

The grotesque double standards – where ­violent, misogynistic racists bent on creating a barbarous theocracy are hailed as freedom fighters, while the only democratic country in the Middle East is denounced as an engine of lethal oppression – have existed for decades.

 

But they were thrown into sharp relief by Hamas's assault on Israel last year, the most deadly single strike against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

 

The Hamas incursion not only triggered the chain of events that led to the present conflicts in Gaza and ­Lebanon, but also unleashed an extraordinary wave of anti-Israeli bigotry and venom across the West.

At times, it felt as if our ­civilisation had been gripped by insanity. Basic morality had been inverted.

 

Radical activists who had cried 'Believe all women' ­during the #' ­during the #MeToo tumult, overnight became sceptics about claims of Hamas terrorists raping Jewish women.

 

Strident diversity ­officials now began to bleat about 'the ­context' when asked why they were silent about anti-Jewish ­racist abuse.

 

the wake of October 7, Israel became the most hated nation on earth. The sheer loathing of it was out of all proportion to its size and influence.

 

It is almost exactly a year since the Hamas attack exposed the moral decadence in large parts of our society. October 8, 2023, ought to have been a day of shining ethical clarity for humankind, given the horror that had unfolded over the preceding 24 hours as Hamas embarked on its killing spree.

 

No one was spared, not ­children, not women, not the elderly. Rockets were fired at moving cars. Grenades were thrown into bomb shelters in which families had taken ­refuge. A music festival was turned into a site of rape and slaughter.

 

More than 1,100 people were killed in total, 796 of them civilians. Shocking though it was, even this death toll failed to capture the full depravity of the massacre. The assailants took glee in their sadism, filming their violence and sharing it online.

Not content with their bloodbath in Israel, they also took 250 hostages, whom they dragged back to Gaza and then paraded, bruised and bloodied, through the streets. This was more than terrorism or mass murder.

It was, in the words of ­German novelist Herta ­Muller, 'a total derailment from civilisation'. The Jewish nation found itself subjected to the very butchery it was built to withstand. The state to which Jews had fled to escape the pogroms had now experienced one of its own.

All this should have awoken the world's conscience. Yet Israel waited in vain for the young and educated of the West to rally to its side.

 

From the moment that news of the Hamas attack began to be broadcast, the voices of equivocation and excuse-making could be heard. Some said Israel had provoked the atrocities by their mistreatment of the Gazan population.

 

Just as they now say Israel provoked Iran by attacking Hezbollah – even though ­Hezbollah has fired rockets at Israel almost every day since October 7.

Others claimed Hamas's October 7 assault was a just response to Israel's ­colonial-style occupation of Palestinian land. Referring to the mass killings at the music festival, Ashok Kumar, a senior lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London, tweeted: 'Sometimes partying on stolen land next to a concentration camp has consequences.'

 

One disturbing opinion poll in the US found 60 per cent of 18 to 24-year-old Americans felt Palestinian grievances justified Hamas's action.

 

Perhaps worse than the ­specious justifications were the expressions of jubilation, which started even as the massacre was still underway.

 

Today is a day of celebration,' said Rivkah Brown of the Left-wing media outlet Novara on October 7, utterly dismissive of concerns about civilian death. 'The struggle for freedom is rarely ­bloodless and we should not apologise for it,' she said.

And this perverse mood of exhilaration spilled out onto the streets, epitomised by a large ­demonstration on October 9 outside the Israeli embassy in London, where, according to one report: 'Arabic music was blasting, people were linking arms and dancing.'

Such scenes of elation were also accompanied by expressions of intimidation and acts of violence. At Birmingham University, protesters ­displayed a banner saying: 'Zionists off our campus', a slogan that was part of an ugly atmosphere in Britain in the weeks after October 7 that saw anti-Semitic hate crimes rise by 1,350 per cent.

 

Jewish schools and shops were attacked. At the Wiener Historical Holocaust Library in central ­London, the oldest such institution in the world, graffiti in support of Gaza was daubed at the entrance.

 

The mix of crude anti-Semitism and glorification of terrorism was also on display in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations which have become such a feature of cities in Britain and elsewhere in the West since October 7.

The relentless nature of these anti-Israeli protests, along with moronic chants like 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free', again highlights how deranged and morally perverted this cause has become.

Together with the wave of hate crimes, the demonstrations served to promote the ­internationalisation of Hamas's reactionary ideology, where the Jewish state is singled out for ­special contempt as the source of the world's ills, with the Jewish people held to be guilty by association.

Indeed, no nation provokes the wrath of the West's activist class as much as Israel.

Thousands can perish in Syria's civil war, or in Saudi Arabia's Western-backed offensive in Yemen, or in Myanmar or the Ethiopian region of Tigray, and not one foot will touch a street in our cities in protest.

Yet the minute Israel takes action against the terrorists on its borders, the marchers will be out with their placards, screeching about genocide.

 

The very existence of Israel excites fury on a visceral level that transcends logic. It seems to me that Israel has become a kind of sin-bearer for the woke warriors of the West, a totem of everything they find objectionable in Western society, culture and history.

 

From racism and poverty to ­military aggression, the Jewish nation is said to be at the centre of a vast web of global oppression.

 

­Jewish population is of North African or Middle Eastern descent.

Just as fallacious is the common description of Israel as a 'colonialist' power when, in reality, it was born from an anti-colonial movement against British rule in Palestine in the late 1940s. This inconvenient truth does not suit the agenda of the haters, of course.

 

Even more grotesque is the ­parallel drawn by pro-­Palestinian activists between Israel and the South Africa of the apartheid era. Yet there is no comparison. Israel is an advanced democracy whose Arab population has the right to vote and whose Supreme Court includes Arab justices.

 

The entire process of denigrating Israel is riddled with lies and contradictions. In their fulminations against the Jewish state, the progressive activists blather about 'social justice' for Gaza.

 

Yet homosexual relations are illegal in Gaza, with the result that gay people face persecution and torture there, a reality that makes the London-based pressure group 'Queers for Palestine' look like a bunch of deluded idiots.

 

Nor is there any justice for women under Hamas's brutal Islamist dogma, which imposes widespread discrimination against them. According to one recent study, women in Gaza have one of the world's lowest rates of ­participation in the labour market, at just 20 per cent.

 

Outspoken Western feminists, who see dangerous misogyny in a touch on the knee or a risque joke, fall silent in the face of mass rapes by Hamas fighters, because – in the woke playbook – Jews are the oppressors and Palestinians the victims.

 

Apart from the charity called Jewish Women's Aid, not one group in England that focuses on sexual violence against women condemned the sex crimes of Hamas. In fact, the radical organisation Sisters Uncut actively challenged the reports of abuse, claiming that there was a risk of stirring up Islamophobia.

 

The theory that Israelis invented or exaggerated the incidence of sexual assaults for their own ­political ends fits the anti-Semitic stereotype that portrays Jews as cynical, cunning liars, continually manipulating events for their own political advantage.

 

That belief in the Jews' inherent dishonesty also lies behind the lurid conspiracy theory that Israel fabricated much of the attack on October 7 in order to provide a pretext for pulverising Gaza.

 

Its an approach that could be called 'Pogrom denial', a smaller version of the vile practice of ­'Holocaust denial' which has been central to modern anti-Semitism.

 

While few of the Western pro-Palestinian brigade go so far as to question the reality of the Holocaust, they undermine its central importance to the Jews and to humanity in other ways.

 

One is to scold Israel for using its traumatic legacy as a stick with which to beat Hezbollah and Hamas, even though both groups are built on the desire to wipe the Jewish state off the face of the earth.

 

Another is to challenge the Jewish people's moral ownership of the Holocaust by robbing the Nazis' genocide of its racial specificity, instead presenting Hitler's policy as a generalised act of extremist wickedness.

 

Dressed up as a step towards greater inclusion, it is a process that downgrades the unique suffering of the Jews.

Other hypocrisies are glaring, such as the habit of self-­regarding activists to don the Keffiyeh, originally a scarf worn by Bedouin tribesmen but now an emblem of solidarity with Palestine.

Yet these are often the same people who shriek about 'cultural appropriation' if a white person wears a sombrero or has their hair braided.

Moreover, in a rich irony, few of the Keffiyehs are made in ­Palestine but rather are ­manufactured in China using forced Uyghur labour.

 

These double standards are embodied in the figure of Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader and now independent MP for Islington. He likes to see himself as a feminist ally, supporter of gay rights, advocate of democracy, and champion of the oppressed.

Yet in his hatred of Israel, he has ended up colluding with violent misogyny, racism, homophobia and authoritarianism.

 

Tragically, there are too many in the West who have taken the same route as Corbyn. That helps to explain why we failed collectively the moral test of October 7.

 

Israel deserved better.

 

Link - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13926741/BRENDAN-ONEILL-argues-far-West-failed-moral-test-posed-October-7.html

 

I agree that 7/10 was evil and and unjustified attack. But I don't see how it'st a moral test for westerners in general, when it's nothing to do with us any more than any of the other dozens of equally horrifying and tragic wars around the world? Trying to guilt us into supporting the Israeli side is no better than vice-versa for the Palestinian side. We're better off staying neutral imo and concentrating on humanitarian aid. 

[Campion]

1 hour ago, pi3141 said:

Huh? ‘Queers for Palestine’? Really?
05/09/2024
 

I recently attended a rally against anti-semitism. Since Hamas’ attack on Israeli concert goers and kibbutzim occurred on Oct. 7, 2023, I wanted to support Israel in general and my Jewish friends.

 

I knew there were LGBTQ people who side with Palestinians and Hamas, but one transwoman there, accented in a black-and-white-checkered keffiyeh, and wearing a surgical mask, held a placard reading that “no trans woman would be free until Palestine was free.” She’s not alone. Go to any campus ruckus against Israel today and you will see the flag of Palestine accompanied by the rainbow banner and chants of “From the River to the Sea …” 

 

Lenin once described useful idiots but it takes a special kind of cognitive dissonance to ignore the evidence out there that Palestine is not a safe place for anyone LGBTQ. 

 

Agree with you on this. The left makes people perform intellectual somersaults like this, it shows how blinkered and self-sabotaging our civilisation is now. 

[pi3141]

1 hour ago, Campion said:

 

I agree that 7/10 was evil and and unjustified attack. But I don't see how it'st a moral test for westerners in general, when it's nothing to do with us any more than any of the other dozens of equally horrifying and tragic wars around the world? Trying to guilt us into supporting the Israeli side is no better than vice-versa for the Palestinian side. We're better off staying neutral imo and concentrating on humanitarian aid. 

 

Sometimes neutrality is not an option. Look at Russia in WWII. 

 

They thought they was safe being neutral. 

 

What happens if Hamas wins?

 

Will they respect neutrality?

 

I doubt it. There religion demands otherwise.

 

I'm sure Hamas loves Queers for Palestine while the war is ongoing, but will they still love the Queers if they win?

 

No.

 

Because their religion forbids it, so they'll accept the support for now, because it suits them, but that won't continue if they triumph.

 

I can guarantee that.

 

So staying neutral while evil runs amok - not a good idea.

 

I'm a spiritual person, but sometimes you have to face reality and fight for what you believe in.

 

Or at least speak up for what you believe and be prepared to deal with the consequences in a physical manner if they arise.

 

[pi3141]

The native American Indians were probably the most spiritual people on this earth, but they still had warriors to protect their land and people.

 

I found out recently the Vikings invaded America and they fought with the Indians.

 

The Indians won.

 

Meaning, the Indians were not only the greatest spiritually, but also the greatest warriors.

 

They saw no conflict in that, and nor do I.

[pi3141]

 

How did they win?

 

Because they stayed neutral?

 

No.

 

It's because they taught themselves how to fight, kill and win.

 

That doesn't make them 'non spiritual' that makes them awesome in both spiritual and physical matters.

[pi3141]

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

 

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

 

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

 

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

 

—Martin Niemöller

 

So much for neutrality. 

[pi3141]

God forbid if my daughters got attacked on the street  but if they did, would I want the passers by to say 'well it's nothing to do with us, but we'll donate money to a charity so the poor girl can get counselling if she survives'

 

No.

 

I want them to pick up the biggest stick they can find and smack the assailant over the head and put him in the f*king ground.

 

That's what I would do for someone else's daughter.

 

 

Edited October 5, 2024 by pi3141

[pi3141]

 

 

He was also a philosopher. 

[Campion]

1 hour ago, pi3141 said:

Sometimes neutrality is not an option. Look at Russia in WWII. 

 

They thought they was safe being neutral. 

 

I've started watching the 1970s series The World At War, and I was surprised to learn (but should have already known) that WW2 wasn't only started by Germany but also by Russia, which invaded east Poland at the same time as Germany did the west side; then followed on with incursions into Latvia, Lithuania and Finland.  Russia had a non-aggression pact with Germany but they weren't neutral. 

 

1 hour ago, pi3141 said:

What happens if Hamas wins?

 

Will they respect neutrality?

 

I doubt it. There religion demands otherwise.

 

Hamas' aim afaik is local to the area, they want to take over the land they consider to be theirs. Will they start attacking random neutral countries thousands of miles away? I doubt it. If they did we wouldn't be neutral any longer. If Israel wants to be allies with us and get our support why not do it officially and join NATO? 

 

1 hour ago, pi3141 said:

I'm sure Hamas loves Queers for Palestine while the war is ongoing, but will they still love the Queers if they win?

 

No.

 

Because their religion forbids it, so they'll accept the support for now, because it suits them, but that won't continue if they triumph.

 

I can guarantee that.

 

They don't love the lgbt people now, and I agree that their religion is pretty inflexible and won't change its attitudes, and that's a much bigger problem than just Hamas who are afaik orthodox Muslims. 

 

2 hours ago, pi3141 said:

So staying neutral while evil runs amok - not a good idea.

 

I'm a spiritual person, but sometimes you have to face reality and fight for what you believe in.

 

Or at least speak up for what you believe and be prepared to deal with the consequences in a physical manner if they arise.

  

Evil is running amok all over the world, not just in the middle east so why should we prioritise Israel? There are lots of wars in the world.  Evil is amok right here in my country where my people are being invaded (to use Suella Braverman's description) and we are being ethnically replaced so we are in no position to be a world policeman even if we wanted to. Yes I would love to be able to stop evil acts like 7/10 but it didn't come out of nowhere. Taking sides in the conflict means accepting the evils which Israel has done too. 

 

 

[Campion]

2 hours ago, pi3141 said:

The native American Indians were probably the most spiritual people on this earth, but they still had warriors to protect their land and people.

 

I found out recently the Vikings invaded America and they fought with the Indians.

 

The Indians won.

 

Meaning, the Indians were not only the greatest spiritually, but also the greatest warriors.

 

They saw no conflict in that, and nor do I.

  

The Native Americans were defending their home territory which usually gives an advantage over the invaders, who were far from home, reinforcements and supply lines. 

Sure there's no moral conflict between spirituality and warriorship.  I don't have a problem with self-defense either ours, Israel's or Palestine's. Are you suggesting it's in our national interest to take Israel's side?  I aim to be open minded so do listen to the arguments.  

[Campion]

2 hours ago, pi3141 said:

God forbid if my daughters got attacked on the street  but if they did, would I want the passers by to say 'well it's nothing to do with us, but we'll donate money to a charity so the poor girl can get counselling if she survives'

 

No.

 

I want them to pick up the biggest stick they can find and smack the assailant over the head and put him in the f*king ground.

 

That's what I would do for someone else's daughter. 

 

You're describing something happening in your own country and yes of course we should defend ourselves, I'm not a pacifist.  But attacks occur all over the world and the logic of saying that we are responsible for stopping attacks in other continents, in countries not in our defensive pacts like NATO, is to have some kind of global police force and we are right back to the New World Order. If Israel wants friendy and allies to stand up for them, then at least ask for it openly and let's have a referendum or something. 

[Campion]

2 hours ago, pi3141 said:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

 

—Martin Niemöller

 

So much for neutrality. 

  

Lots of people spoke out against the Nazis in the 1930s so I don't see his point. And again he's talking about the situation within his own country, his own civilisation and continent. Did he also speak out against injustices on the other side of the world? And if he did, what was his solution?  

 

So even if we concentrate our efforts and Hamas is destroyed and Israel is secure and peaceful, it's still only a small country and what will we do about all the lgbt folks in Africa or Iran or Russia? 

[Grumpy Grapes]

2 hours ago, pi3141 said:

The native American Indians were probably the most spiritual people on this earth, but they still had warriors to protect their land and people.

 

I found out recently the Vikings invaded America and they fought with the Indians.

 

The Indians won.

 

Meaning, the Indians were not only the greatest spiritually, but also the greatest warriors.

 

They saw no conflict in that, and nor do I.

 

But the Palestinians weren't the original invaders. 

 

Also, although off-topic, the history of North America is hazy due to uncertainty over when exactly the Europeans got there and what they did to the natives. Maybe the Vikings did more damage.

[pi3141]

24 minutes ago, Grumpy Grapes said:

But the Palestinians weren't the original invaders. 

 

Also, although off-topic, the history of North America is hazy due to uncertainty over when exactly the Europeans got there and what they did to the natives. Maybe the Vikings did more damage.

 

Can you tell me when the Jews aggressively invaded Palestine?

 

I missed that history lesson.

 

What was the war or conflict called, I'll look it up and have a read.

 

I always thought the Jews mostly ended up in Palestine because Hitler put them there during the Holocaust after robbing them and slaughtering a large number of them in concentration camps.

 

When did Israel invade Palestine?

 

[pi3141]

46 minutes ago, Campion said:

  

Lots of people spoke out against the Nazis in the 1930s so I don't see his point. And again he's talking about the situation within his own country, his own civilisation and continent. Did he also speak out against injustices on the other side of the world? And if he did, what was his solution?  

 

So even if we concentrate our efforts and Hamas is destroyed and Israel is secure and peaceful, it's still only a small country and what will we do about all the lgbt folks in Africa or Iran or Russia? 

 

The point is if you ignore evil, it will soon come knocking at your door.

[pi3141]

1 hour ago, Campion said:

 Are you suggesting it's in our national interest to take Israel's side?  I aim to be open minded so do listen to the arguments.  

 

The Muslims call us unbelievers and infidels, they also have scriptures that instruct them to wage holy war and kill all unbelievers who don't convert. They disagree with our way of life, Hamas brainwash children into hate with false teachings and consider women less worthy than men.

 

I guess if you agree with that then it's not a threat to you.

 

But to me, that is some sick sh*t. I think Islamn is a disgraceful religion and die to their extreme views pose a threat to peace and our way of life.

 

I think that's worth standing up to.

 

Evil is evil, let it go unchecked or  unchallenged and it becomes a problem.

 

Chamberlain made peace with Hitler, look how that turned out.

 

If chamberlain had the balls to confront Hitler, he may have prevented millions of deaths.

[pi3141]

1 hour ago, Campion said:

I've started watching the 1970s series The World At War, and I was surprised to learn (but should have already known) that WW2 wasn't only started by Germany but also by Russia, which invaded east Poland at the same time as Germany did the west side; then followed on with incursions into Latvia, Lithuania and Finland.  Russia had a non-aggression pact with Germany but they weren't neutral. 

 

By signing a deal to stay out of each other's way is basically being neutral to their actions.

 

But it didn't work for the Russians did it. When Hitler got strong enough, he attacked Russia. 

 

Do you think if Hamas wins the war in Israel that they will stop there? Change their ideals, rewrite their religion ir something?

 

You don’t think it will not emboldened Iran to start rattling sabers or other extremist Muslims to begin holy war?

 

Oh, ok. I think your wrong if you think like that and I also think you don’t know much about Islamic mentality. 

 

Have you read the Koran and are you aware of some of the more extreme interpretations of the Korans teachings?

 

Do you think it's right to place women in a ditch and stone them to death because they spoke to a man or tried to get an education?

 

Do you want that sort of thing over here?

[pi3141]

1 hour ago, Campion said:

 

I've started watching the 1970s series The World At War, and I was surprised to learn (but should have already known) that WW2 wasn't only started by Germany but also by Russia, which invaded east Poland at the same time as Germany did the west side; then followed on with incursions into Latvia, Lithuania and Finland.  Russia had a non-aggression pact with Germany but they weren't neutral. 

 

 

Hamas' aim afaik is local to the area, they want to take over the land they consider to be theirs. Will they start attacking random neutral countries thousands of miles away? I doubt it. If they did we wouldn't be neutral any longer. If Israel wants to be allies with us and get our support why not do it officially and join NATO? 

 

 

They don't love the lgbt people now, and I agree that their religion is pretty inflexible and won't change its attitudes, and that's a much bigger problem than just Hamas who are afaik orthodox Muslims. 

 

  

Evil is running amok all over the world, not just in the middle east so why should we prioritise Israel? 

 

 

Oh you mean like Boko Haram in Africa?

 

What justifies Boko Haram in Africacto kidnap women?

 

What's their religion or ideology?

 

Take 3 guesses. 

 

 

 

Edited October 6, 2024 by pi3141

[pi3141]

Remind me again what religion justifies the beheading and stoning of human beings in Saudi to give Saudi one of the worst reputations for human rights?

 

And you are okay with that extremism spreading and taking over other countries?

 

I'm not.

[pi3141]

11 hours ago, Campion said:

 

You're describing something happening in your own country and yes of course we should defend ourselves, I'm not a pacifist.  But attacks occur all over the world and the logic of saying that we are responsible for stopping attacks in other continents, in countries not in our defensive pacts like NATO, is to have some kind of global police force and we are right back to the New World Order. If Israel wants friendy and allies to stand up for them, then at least ask for it openly and let's have a referendum or something. 

 

I'm describing a situation where not taking action is the wrong thing to do. 

 

It doesn't matter where it is.

[Grumpy Grapes]

Both sides are at fault and are part of a larger global game. Taking sides is either a sign of ignorance, or a sign of ulterior motives.