Alaa Abdullah Riyad Qaddoum, age 5, killed by the Israeli military in Gaza City on August 5, 2022.
In August 2014, the Jewish festival of Tisha B’Av arrived as Israel was waging a military onslaught on Gaza that would eventually kill 2,251 Palestinians, 1,462 of whom were civilians, including over 500 children. Tisha B’Av is traditionally observed a day of mourning over the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and by extension, the tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people throughout its history. To mark the occasion of the festival in 2014, I wrote a new version of the first chapter of Lamentations (the Biblical book traditionally chanted on Tisha B’Av). At the time, I suggested this new version be added to the ceremony to acknowledge the massive tragedy the state of Israel was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza in the name of the Jewish people.
We marched on Saturday in support of Scottish independence and unilateral nuclear disarmament
On Saturday my wife Gail and daughter Gabrielle joined several hundred other marchers in the rain down at Helensburgh to march against nuclear weapons and for Scottish independence. As we walked past the Faslane Peace camp and near to the Nuclear Submarine base South Gate the sun appeared to brighten the day and remind us of the natural beauty of the area which is so grotesquely offended by the existence of a monstrous threat to humanity. The Trident nuclear submarines and missiles they carry are a horrible carbuncle placed in Scotland by the mighty United States of America and controlled by that international bully and primary rogue nation across the planet. The cause of Scottish independence and unilateral nuclear disarmament are integrally linked and marching for both on Saturday was both worthwhile and necessary.
Audrey White, a veteran Labour activist of many decades’ standing, made the news in the past, and has made news this week. When Keir Starmer, grand dictator of Die Arbeiterpartei, made a very half-hearted move to deliver a speech in Liverpool this week, he did so by trying not to let people outside the press know. The reason of course was that he knew that the locals would be out in force to give him the kind of welcome they once gave to Michael Heseltine. Starmer is not popular in the north-west, especially after the party HQ’s anti-democratic interference in Liverpool’s local affairs.
Audrey White found out where Starmer would be. As I say, she has a major history, including in the 1980s playing a critical role in changing the law of the land to ban sexual harassment in the workplace. So she was never…
Reporters withoutBorders chargesPrince Mohammed bin Salmanand his accomplices with crimes against humanity for murderingJamal Khashoggiand persecuting/torturing other Saudi journalists.
Reporters Without Borders lawyerPaul Coppintalks about the 500-page complaint he has filed with a German court detailing the savage and inhuman treatment of Saudi journalists ordered by Prince Bin Salman and carried out by his close associates and other members of the Saudi Government. Coppin also explains why these activities are legally classified as crimes against humanity.
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Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.Video: The Dark Future of Health Passports
From the ‘original sin’ of 1917 to the government’s more recent adoption of the controversial IHRA antisemitism definition, Britain has always been firmly in Israel’s camp
In December 2016, thenBritishPrime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative governmentformally adoptedthe International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’sworking definitionof antisemitism. It was the first government in the world to do so, marking yet another milestone in the 100-year history of British support for Zionism and callous disregard for Palestinian rights.
The “original sin” was the 1917Balfour Declaration, which promised to support the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people”, provided that nothing was done to “prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. In 1917, Arabs constituted90 percentof the population of Palestine; Jews made up less than…
I’m one of these. But this is not an easy position to adopt.
A ‘Theobald-Jew’
As I mentioned on a previous post, Jonathan Hoffman, the man who is to Zionist tolerance what the shark from Jaws was to convincing visual-effects work, told me the following recently; –
You are a disgrace. A Jew In Name Only. JINO…According to the Benedictine monk Thomas of Monmouth in his The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich (1173), it was an apostate Jew, a certain Theobald, who swore that Jews had killed twelve-year old William, a tanner’s apprentice, to fulfill their “Passover blood ritual” in the fateful year of 1144—the first recorded such episode in a long line of murderous defamations. The world is teeming with Theobald-Jews who are ready to betray their own people to serve what they regard as their advantage.
The startling news that Mike Sivier’s entire defence has simply been struck out of the nonexistent legal ‘case’ Rachel Riley has lodged against him shows that the Witch Hunt against anti-Zionism is not going away. Did anyone seriously imagine it would? (Incidentally, if you can spare some cash, please go to here to help Mike’s appeal against the decision.)
As if to coincide, David Collier, the racist, Arab-hating ally of the Gnasherjew Twitter troll account, announced the next stage in his half-mad campaign to blank out all criticism of Israeli aggression against the Palestinians. The brazenness of these attempts has reached new heights of bullying arrogance. The openly-secret pretext for Collier’s previous harassments of Palestinian supporters was that he was “honestly, bravely, nobly” fighting against anti-Semitism.
Well guess what? Collier is not even bothering with that pretext anymore, almost certainly because the shameless co-operation of the British…
“The problem we have is that the political class has been captured in this country on both sides of the chamber in the house of commons all political parties have been captured by the Zionist lobby and corporate capitalism…” Chris Williamson
The past week as seen yet another attack by antisemitism “smearmongers” and the target this time is academic Professor David Miller, professor of political sociology at Bristol University. Professor Miller was speaking at an online event which was hosted by Labour Against the Witchhunt. During his talk Miller stated that he had been “attacked and complained about by the head of the Bristol JSoc Jewish society along with the president of the Union of Jewish Students [UJS].” He also stated that “JSocs [Jewish Societies] are all part of UJS, UJS is member of the World Union of Jewish Students, which is a direct member of the World Zionist Organisation, and in its constitution UJS of course mentions being pro-Israel.” If you follow what goes on in the political world with regard to the antisemitism smear campaign you may think, like I do, that this means that they are part of the Israel lobby. Professor Miller has been subjected to a 2 year campaign by pro-Israel activists to get him dismissed from the University of Bristol where he teaches political sociology, and in particular about corporate and state power, lobbying tactics and Islamophobia.
Professor Miller regularly speaks out against Zionism, which is a racist political ideology. Zionists believe Judaism is a nationality as well as a religion, and that Jews deserve their own state in their ancestral homeland, Israel. The only problem with this is that they consider Palestine to be their ancestral homeland despite the fact that it was never called Israel before 1948 or appeared on any maps before then. Anti-Zionism is too often conflated with antisemitism and too often this is why people end up being accused of antisemitism. Former Labour MP Chris Williamson, who has been a target for antisemitism smearmongers has spoken out against the accusations against Professor Miller and posted the following on Twitter –
“I’m outraged at the Israel lobby’s attempts to pressure @BristolUni into sacking Professor David Miller. I’ve written to the Vice Chancellor, calling on him to put an end to this vicious campaign. I encourage you all to do the same.”
This attack on Miller comes less than a week after a report by University College London’s academic board stated that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of “antisemitism” “is not fit for purpose within a university setting and has no legal basis for enforcement.” The board then voted to endorse the report and it will now be down to the university management to decide on whether the decision should be implemented or not. The report will also have an impact on attempts made by Secretary of State for Education Gavin Williamson to pressure universities into accepting the IHRA’s definition.
“And of course, there’s the time-honored tactic of smearing any critic of Israel or Zionism as an “anti-Semite” or a “self-hating Jew” on the basis that Zionism is somehow a facet of Jewish identity rather than a racist, modern political ideology with secular origins premised on ethnic cleansing and anti-Arab racism.”
he is of course talking about the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism, and there seems to be an ever increasing amount of people who are unwilling to differentiate between the two. Professor Miller also writes –
“Given the size of Britain’s Israel lobby and the extent to which it has already penetrated public institutions, this naturally has the effect of minimizing and sidelining genuine concerns about anti-Black racism and Islamophobia as well as shouting down the ways in which the state of Israel is deeply engaged in promoting both of those types of racism.”
Professor Nira Yuval-Davis, a British and diasporic Israeli sociologist, a professor emerita and Honorary Director of the Centre for Research on Migration, Refugees and Belonging at the University of East London, gave a talk on The IHRA definition of antisemitism and discussions about race in Britain. This talk was presented to Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment webinar ‘Imposing racialised state discourses: Racism in Britain today.” In the talk she argues strongly that treating antisemitism as exceptional works to the disadvantage of creating solidarity between Jews and other groups facing racial hatred. She also said that “One of the most controversial recent acts of exceptionalism has been enacted by the Minister of Education, Gavin Williamson when he wrote to the VCs of all British universities demanding – with a threat of sanctions – that they adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism.” Williamson has not demanded that universities adopt a single definition for Islamophobia, or any other form of racism, just this one regarding Jews. This act of exceptionalism, in addition to everything else, creates a division between antisemitism and racism against other racially marginalised groups.
By attacking people like Professor Miller, Ken Loach, Michael Rosen and many others with claims of antisemitism, these pro-Israel activists are in fact making the problem of antisemitism worse. They are drawing attention away from the real rise in antisemitic attacks in the UK and other places plus if they cry “wolf” too many times, people will stop paying attention which will be dangerous if ever they actually reveal somebody who is truly racist. This final paragraph is my opinion but the rest of the article is drawn from what others have written and what I have read.
Boris Johnson doesn’t regret ignoring advice from his own scientists, which could have prevented the Covid-19 ‘worst-case scenario’, his spokesman has suggested. Mikey Smith 8 February 2021
I guess this could be considered a continuation of the article Are they really this incompetent? in which I posed the question of competency of Boris Johnson and the British government over their handling of the Covid-19 crisis. I also asked whether it was incompetence or whether there was hidden agenda behind their actions. I am still asking those questions 3 weeks after writing that article and I still cannot help but feel that their ‘strategy’ has a eugenics feel about it especially after my attention was drawn to an article by James Tapper on 13 February 2021.
According to this article, in December 2020 the Care Quality Commission (CQC) said that “inappropriate Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) notices had caused potentially avoidable deaths last year.” DNACPRs are usually reserved for those who are too frail to benefit from CPR. The charity Mencap has said that in January 2021 it had received reports from people with learning disabilities that they had been told that if they became ill with Covid-19 they would not be resuscitated. This is despite widespread condemnation when the same thing happened during the first wave of the epidemic and the fact that an urgent investigation was conducted by the care watchdog. The CQC has said that it will be publishing a report on this practise within the next few weeks.
The government has not given priority for vaccination to those with learning disabilities despite the growing evidence that even those with a mild disability are more likely to die from Covid-19. Data released by the NHS last week, shows that in the five weeks since the third lockdown began, Covid-19 has accounted for 65 per cent of deaths for those with learning disabilities. According to Public Health England, those aged 18-34 with learning disabilities are 30 times more likely to die from Covid-19 infection than others the same age. Those with Down’s Syndrome were in one of four groups set by the Joint Commission for Vaccination and Immunisation to receive their vaccinations by 14 February 2021. Many others who have different learning disabilities were classified as lower in need and are still waiting. You would think with figures that high the government would prioritise people with all learning disabilities in the same way they did people over 80 but they did not. This is just too reminiscent of how disabled people have been treated until the movement for disabled people and their rights began in the 1960-70s.
In Britain before the Community Care Act 1990, people with learning disabilities were often placed in large mental health institutions along with those with mental health issues. It could be said that they were hidden away from the public. In Nazi Germany it was the disabled people that were murdered in the first experiments with gassing when lorries were converted into gas chambers and carbon monoxide was used to kill them. This happened to both physically disabled people and those with learning disabilities. This was part of the Nazi plan to eliminate those who did not fit their image of Aryan perfection and it would have also fitted in with the eugenics idea of only those genetic lines with no disabilities being allowed to continue.
The governments health and safety watchdog, the Health and Safety executive (HSE) has not shut down any workplaces that put employees at risk of catching Covid-19. This is despite the fact that there has been over 3,500 outbreaks at work since the start of the pandemic. An employment minister stated that Covid had been classed as ‘significant’ rather than ‘serious’ as it “best supports” inspectors in making sensible regulatory decisions. She also said that effects of Covid were “non-permanent or reversible, non-progressive and any disability is temporary” for the working population as a whole. This would imply that the effects of ‘long Covid’ have never been taken into account during the process of making these decisions. Jennifer Trueland wrote “It’s becoming accepted that long COVID is a serious problem. The Office for National Statistics said in December that an estimated one in five people testing positive for COVID-19 exhibit symptoms for five weeks or longer, with one in 10 exhibiting symptoms for 12 weeks or longer.” Severe Covid-19 can cause pneumonia and respiratory failure, which can result in permanent damage and scarring to the lungs. But Covid-19 is not only a lung illness: it can cause other life-changing complications. In particular, because it can increase the risk of blood clots, it can lead to deep vein thrombosis, heart attacks and stroke. Less commonly, it can cause heart muscle inflammation and heart rhythm disturbances, such as atrial fibrillation. None of those complications appear to have been considered when classifying Covid-19 let alone the symptoms of long Covid which can include fatigue, breathlessness, joint and muscle pain, anxiety and depression, chest pains and palpitations and not being able to focus or think straight.
The lower risk designation seems to be interfering with enforcement and some inspectors have said that it restricts their ability to issue prohibition notices or to prosecute. There has been an outbreak of Covid at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) in Swansea where there are 500 cases reported. This is the largest outbreak in a work place yet and it has happened within a government agency. The inadequate classification and the lack of a hard lockdown shows just how much the government has wanted to keep work places open regardless of the risk posed to workers and their families. It would appear that the economy is of more importance to the government than the lives of employees and their families. The fact that there has never been a hard lockdown in Britain, as there has been in other countries, has meant that Britain now has the highest death rate per capita and and is still fighting Covid after 12 months.
Hopefully with the rollout of vaccines there is now light at the end of a very long tunnel and life may soon return to some semblance of ‘normal’ but things will not be the same. So many businesses have had to close which has meant the loss of thousands upon thousands of jobs; so many lives have been lost and a lot of them needlessly if only the government had acted sooner and done things properly and in the way other countries have; so many people now have had to wait too long for medical procedures or have died due to not being able to get the treatment they need. Boris Johnson and the Tory government have to be the worst in the history of prime ministers and an elected government. They have lied and lied and attempted to distract us from the shambles created by either their sheer incompetence, their laissez-faire attitude or the fact that they just do not care about those most impacted by Covid-19 … the elderly, the disabled, the BAME community and those who are socio-economically disadvantaged. I know I only covered two subjects but they are important ones and I hope that we have no more major outbreaks and will come out of lockdown soon so we can all catch up with loved ones and have lives again. I have 3 family members who have been on the frontline through all this and I will be glad when my family can relax and know they are safe. As ever a lot of this is my opinion and I have included links for the information garnered from other places. Stay safe everyone.
I’m one of these. But this is not an easy position to adopt.
In Mundo per oculos meos 