Unmute !

She was so great, I adore her very much. RIP

46 years ago

Poly Styrene with X-Ray Spex at CBGB, New York, March 1978.

Photos by Ebet Roberts

Why won’t Israelis let themselves be killed?

The global woke loathing for Israel is taking an even darker turn.

by Brendan O’Neill

This is the question anti-Israel campaigners have never been able to answer: why do they treat Israel so differently to every other nation on Earth? Why is it child-killing bloodlust when Israel takes military action but not when Turkey or India do? Why must we rush to the streets to set light to the Israel flag but never the Saudi flag, despite Saudi Arabia’s unconscionable war on Yemen? Why is it only ‘wrong’ or at worst ‘horrific’ when Britain or America drop bombs in the Middle East but Nazism when Israel fires missiles into Gaza? Why do you merely oppose the military action of some states but you hate Israel, viscerally, publicly, loudly?

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/05/12/why-wont-israelis-let-themselves-be-killed/

Time for a hug 😂😍❤️

桜が満開

The Spectator

Salman Rushdie has exposed the great lie of a 'Free Palestine'

Salman Rushdie has rebuked so-called progressive who have failed to distance themselves from the fascists of Hamas

by Brendan O'Neill

In his stride now, Rushdie chides the radicals who have failed to distance themselves from Hamas. This is a ‘terrorist organisation’, he reminds them, and it is ‘very strange for young progressive student [activists] to kind of support a fascist terrorist group’. Indeed. It’s been mindblowing to watch the self-styled anti-fascists of the bourgeois left either stay schtum or even try to rationalise Hamas’s fascistic attack on the Jews of Southern Israel. These are the kind of people who think everything is ‘like the 1930s’ – Brexit, Trump, gender-critical feminism – and yet when there was a pogrom that was genuinely reminiscent of the 1930s they essentially said: ‘Well, what do you expect…?’

Rushdie then commits a secular blasphemy – he questions the chant of our times: ‘Free Palestine.’ He himself supports the creation of a Palestinian state, but what would a ‘Free Palestine’ look like in 2024, he wonders? ‘Right now, if there was a Palestinian state, it would be run by Hamas and that would make it a Taliban-like state…It would be a client state of Iran. And is that what the progressive movements of the Western left wish to create?’

I find myself wondering this all the time. What did it mean when so-called progressives waved the Palestinian flag in the immediate aftermath of 7 October? Was that solidarity with the people of Gaza or Israelophobic triumphalism following Hamas’s vile, bloody invasion of kibbutzim? And when activists holler ‘Globalise the intifada’, what are they saying? The only ‘intifada’ we’ve seen in recent years was the racist pogrom of 7 October. Globalise that? Rushdie is right to call for deeper thought, to muddy with pesky nuance the juvenile rage against Israel that has swept the Western world.

There is something undeniably haunting about Rushdie making his plea for reason from his battered, injured face. In the interview the right lens in his spectacles is blacked out, hiding the eye he lost to the savage knife attack he suffered in August 2022. There’s scar tissue on his face. His lower lip droops to one side. When it comes to radical Islam, this man knows whereof he speaks. The inhumanity of this ideology is literally etched on his face. These are the punishments for ‘blasphemy’ in the 21st century: a severed eye, a deformed mouth. And yet still he sees, still he speaks.

UNRWA Leads to a Path of Violence for Israel, Not Peace, by Larry Domnitch

It appears that UNRWA run refugee “camps” (cities) are perpetuating enmity towards Israel. Confrontation with Israel is taught in their schools, which have adopted the anti-Israel curriculum of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in violation of UN principles of peace and reconciliation.

UNRWA school textbooks contain many examples of indoctrination against Israel, and as well as the veneration of terrorists. Textbooks omit recognition of Israel. School books exclude any connection between the Jews and the land of Israel. It also appears that refugees are being primed for combat.

UNRWA summer camps actually give young “campers” paramilitary training, preparing for future war with the Jews. The goal is the “right of return” — that is to bring Arab populations to cities and towns, and end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.

UNRWA was supposed to be supervised by donor nations and Israel. That includes managing its school curriculum, which continues to indoctrinate and incite violence and terrorism 75 years after the establishment of Israel.

The donor nations and relief agencies that aid UNWRA have not meaningfully demanded a change in its policies, which support incitement to violence and the perpetuation of conflict.

Let me say this in the clearest possible terms. If you’re concerned with Israel’s response, if you’re focused on the people of Gaza right now, you’re either ignorant or intentionally hypocritical. 

2005: Israel handed Gaza over on a silver platter. No “occupation”, no Israeli presence, nothing. 100% theirs. If they wanted anything other than dead Jews, they had the chance. 

In what world is it normal to demand a country provide water and electricity to its enemy when there is clear evidence that they are using those water pipes to create rockets that then kill Israelis? 

You’re worried about the electricity and water in Gaza? You can provide it. Don’t want to? Then keep your mouth shut. 

They have nowhere to go those poor Palestinians? Why don’t you go look at a map? They have a border with Egypt. Let them take them in if they care so much.  

Oh, Egypt doesn’t want them? Did you hear that? That was my heart breaking for them. Egypt can take them. They don’t want them? Not my problem.  

You’re worried about a disproportionate response by Israel? Kindly tell me what a proportionate response would look like. 

Because if we did what they did to us, that would require the murder, abduction, and rape of over a thousand people. 

Is that what you’re recommending Israel does? Because that’s pretty sick of you. 

And once and for all, we need to unequivocally reject the false narrative of “They’re not all Hamas supporters so Israel has no right to attack Gaza.”

A- The Palestinian people elected Hamas. Make up your mind. If they’re a people who you believe deserve a state then it’s time you held them accountable as a people. They elected Hamas. They will pay for that tragic decision.  

B- The Palestinian people, not 100, 1,000, or 10,000 of them, give out candies when innocent Jews are murdered. Have you seen thousands of Palestinians speaking out against Hamas? I haven’t. Where are they? Their silence is all I need to know. 

C- In every war in the history of the world, innocent people die. That fact, as sad as it might be, has zero relevance to whether the war is justified or not. Need I remind you how many innocent Germans died in WWII? Israel is fighting Nazis now. Zero difference. In war, innocent people die. 

D- And finally, don’t come at me with the whole “They can’t speak out. Hamas will kill them.” 

Where have we heard that before? “I was just fulfilling orders. I had no choice.” 

Oh yes, that was what the Nazis said. It was not a legit argument then and it’s not a legit argument now. 

What Israel experienced on October 7th was the equivalent of 9/11 times 50. Israel WILL retaliate accordingly and it will not stop no matter how much you throw your double standard at us. 

We not only have every right to do whatever we can to obliterate Hamas, we have a moral obligation to do so.  

You might not know this now, but a world without Hamas is a safer world for you and your children. 

If you didn’t complain when ISIS was defeated, if you think WWII was justified in order to defeat the Nazis, then you can either stand with Israel while we cleanse the world of Hamas savages or you can go ahead and keep your mouth shut while we do the work from which you will benefit. 

If you have any integrity at all, go read the charters of Hamas and the PLO. If you’re honest, ask yourself what “From the river to the sea” means. Look at a map if you can’t figure it out. It means no Israel. Do you support that? Throwing all Israelis into the sea? Because that’s what that means. 

If you are still delusional enough to think they want a state, go Google The Partition Plan. They had one. They rejected it. Then google how many times Israel offered them a state.

And if, after all that, you still think the Palestinian’s agenda is anything other than total genocide of the Jewish people, congratulations, you have earned the privilege of being named a flaming antisemite who supports murder and rape. 

I’m sure your mother is proud.

Hillel Fuld