Andrew Neil has written a powerful column in today’s Mail about Owen Jones’s bizarre, 25-minute YouTube video in which he reacts to being shown footage of Hamas’s barbaric attacks on October 7th. Here is an extract:
While accepting – several times – that Hamas did indeed commit war crimes on that terrible first Saturday of October, Jones nevertheless proceeds to nitpick, undermine, question and sow seeds of suspicion about the veracity of parts of the video. It is a worrying, disturbing, chilling, often irrational performance which descends into incoherence as it reaches its weary end.
Jones regards the IDF video as Israeli propaganda designed to justify the death and suffering that it has since rained down on northern Gaza in retaliation for October 7th.
If that is its purpose, then it has clearly failed. As the death toll of civilians, including thousands of women and children, mounted while much of Gaza City was reduced to rubble, public opinion across the globe has turned against Israel, as it always does when it responds to some terrorist atrocity.
Even America, the only ally that matters to Israel, is insisting that – with hostilities breaking out again now hostage swaps are over – the IDF must be more careful, considered and proportionate in its efforts to wipe out Hamas.
Israel has indicated it is listening and will behave differently in the next phase of its war on Hamas. But Jones is wrong. The real purpose of the video was not to pave the way for Israel’s invasion of Gaza. It was to show the world exactly what Israel is up against.
How can you negotiate with people capable of such barbarism? What is the point when the Hamas leadership has already pledged to launch more October 7s the moment it has re-established the capacity to do so.
Its aim is not to force Israel to the bargaining table but to wipe it off the map. It revels in killing Jews simply because they are Jews. Exactly what kind of ‘peace deal’ can you do with people committed to your extermination?
Throughout his long ramble, oddly cold and calculating, Jones fails to confront or respond to any of these points. Instead, he concentrates – curiously, perhaps even immorally – on trying to establish that, though Hamas are indeed evil, perhaps they are not quite as evil as the Israelis are making out… and anyway there are lots of evil Israelis too.
It has long been an outrageous conceit of the British hard Left – and proof positive of its moral bankruptcy – that Hamas, a bloodthirsty terrorist group, and the IDF, the military arm of a thriving, disputatious democracy under constant threat, are two sides of the same coin.
Jones is certainly keen to give Hamas the benefit of the doubt and cut its killers the sort of slack he would never grant the IDF. He accepts that Israeli women and children were massacred but is strangely keen to point out that the IDF video provides no “conclusive evidence” that babies were beheaded, women raped and children killed “intentionally”. What kind of bizarre mindset, what sort of moral vacuum leads anybody to posit such crazy caveats?
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Brendan O’Neill had a similar reaction to Andrew Neil when viewing the Owen Jones reaction video. He writes: “It provides the starkest proof yet of the collapse of moral reason and plain decency that has occurred on the middle-class left these past seven weeks.” You can read the rest of his piece in Spiked.
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Amongst friends whose views I know, we adopt a form of conversation of which a transcript would read as “compliant” but the tone and facial expressions make quite clear that the opposite is meant.
“Of course we all believe that there is no difference between men and women other than the way they are classified at birth.”
Is there no end to this madness.
I am becoming harassed, alarmed and distressed. I feel abused threatened and insulted by our own, lol, government.
Even the threat of such a Law has caused me to become fearful
I am thinking of making a complaint to the Police as HMG is clearly committing an offence under S4.A of the Public Order Act 1986.
I am with you al the way on that. I have been offended by the global warming narrative for the past 2 decades, since the point I actually sat down and thought through the concept of a climate tipping point, which actually had me worried for a time.
When I realised that there are a plethora of natural, scientifically logical checks and balances that would mitigate this claimed disaster then I have pulled up anybody I heard making ludicrous, doom laden claims.
Why stop with pubs, though? I was at the bus stop the other day and there were people talking ungrammatically. I was so offended that I had to roll on the floor like a child and scream about my “rights” being violated. This has to stop – and it’s up to this completely mad government to protect me.
Clenching your fists and stamping your feet keeps your clothes cleaner. Have you seen the state of the pavement around bus stops?
I thought that was how Free Gear always looked smart but now I find he just chucks the old ones in the bin and Alli buys him new ones. Must be another reason he always looks like he is weeing himself and stamps his feet when he is asked a question.
Personally, I’ve seen sheep that are made of sterner stuff than these pitiful wet blankets. I can’t begin to tell you how many take to social media and film themselves having an emotional meltdown because somebody in a shop ”misgendered” them. But anyway, I have more respect for sheep than these crybaby wimps;
https://x.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1845164045441151294
Sheep are indeed wonderful animals.
With mint sauce
Even that!
I think I have upset my golf club’s Secretary by commenting on the use of the genetive apostrophe inappropropiately. I pointed out that it was used 3 imes on an email about the progress of the new Club Committee and it offended me to such an extent that I had to email him immediately. I have received no reply and fear that I may be personna non grata but I still won my Seniors match against a neighbouring club, which I hope will mitigate his hurt feelings.
Well God forbid anyone who isn’t Christian would be traumatized by overhearing someone reading some English literature out loud which makes references to Christianity. Maybe we should all go to the pub with ”Trigger Warning: I’m about to open my mouth!” written on a hat. Just more censorship on steroids pushed by pathetic woketards;
”They are the acclaimed works of medieval literature that tell the story of a religious pilgrimage to one of the most important cathedrals in all of Christendom.
But to the astonishment of critics, a leading university has slapped a trigger warning on Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales – because they contain ‘expressions of Christian faith’.
Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, said: ‘Warning students of Chaucer about Christian expressions of faith is weird. Since all characters in the stories are immersed in a Christian experience there is bound to be a lot of expressions of faith. The problem is not would-be student readers of Chaucer but virtue-signalling, ignorant academics.’
Historian Jeremy Black added: ‘Presumably, this Nottingham nonsense is a product of the need to validate courses in accordance with tick-box criteria. It is simultaneously sad, funny and a demeaning of education.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13953897/Woke-Nottingham-University-Geoffrey-Chaucer.html
Imagine the fuss if anyone in their English department ever reads Milton.
I take it from this remark that it a “trigger” to see someone in Muslim dress in the street, which consequently should be banned. The recent shouting in the London marches triggers me completely as presumably every bit of this is illegal. Strangely His Majesty’s plod does nothing, but if an Englishman opens his mouth he is sent to jail. As a Christian in a Christian country, (Fid Def on coins), Charlie needs to sort this out very quickly. Two tier comes nowhere near the correct description of a Country where racism against the indigenous population is permitted and even encouraged by the “Government”!
This sounds to me remarkably like a form of State Censorship, Authoritarianism and Coercive Control.
Not that our kind, caring and definitely not Two-Tier Government would do anything so dreadful.
Won’t these Banter Bouncers also be employees? Don’t they deserve protection from the offensive conversations they patrol? Presumably, landlords could sue themselves if they’re subjected to offensive conversations!
Excellent!
How about this Pub Landlord as a ‘banter cop’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HcB6ZrCLEY
So what happens when the one Jewish customer in a pub is offended by a group of Muslims making a crude antisemitic Joke and wearing t-shirts that read “From the River to the Sea”? Will they get barred from the establishment? Or is this “acceptable” offense?
Proper Muslims don’t drink, but they could be there talking over some tea. It seems to be rare to see this in pubs, probably because it would cause severe violence in many rather good ones! The LAW has nothing to do with it.
“The Worker Protection Bill” just passed is now being superseded by Labour’s new “Employment Rights Bill”???
Isn’t there any kind of quality control for Parliamentary laws, weeding out such pointless repetition?
I think we should have a clean slate, wiping out all laws, especially those originating during our disastrous enslavement to the EU, and starting again from scratch, limiting each law to no more than a ONE PAGE DOCUMENT, and making a maximum number of 100 laws on the books at any one time.
Mankind survived perfectly well for millennia without hundreds and thousands and millions of “laws” regulating their daily lives. So can we.
Yes, the “quality control” are supposed to be the opposition and the backbenchers but as we all know the opposition is always weak and the backbenchers might as well be shouting into the void. For example, the kinds of new “laws” that were churned out during the so-called pandemic were fast-tracked into effect through the parliamentary loophole of the “statutory instrument”, which is meant to be a last-minute tweak to the main body of a new piece of legislation, but in fact entire new laws were passed in this way. The “Coronavirus Act” was one of these (weird, there was never a Flu Act!) So quality control is often just absent, and bits and pieces just get added and taken away at a whim, which is why the statute books are a labyrinth of Articles, sections, sub-sections, clauses and sub-clauses.
Plus, even Parliament only ever get a say in what happens to proposed legislation when it suits ministers to let them.
Brilliant idea.
Probably 10 laws might be adequate, say the 10 Commandments? If keeping to them you are unlikely to break many of the 10,000 dross ones. Unfortunately many of those in Government seem quite happy to break all 10 some days, and a slightly lesser number all the time!
Yup, I think you wouldn’t be far off with that. Trouble is people who go into politics seem to want to fiddle with things – and people seem to expect them to do so.
Yet more garbage from a crap “government”, it is what it is, control, censorship, and time people seriously bloody woke up and started fighting back, surely against my human rights?, well works for a certain element of society!!.
I’m sure even universities will see sense when bar,cafeteria ,coffee shops and other safe spaces takings are down
Why not extend this to the House of Commons, Lords, the subsidised bars and restaurants? Indeed, why not every single public place? Where does it all end? Banter Police at every conveyor belt in Sainsbury’s (not that they have many running)? Thousands of Banter Police at concerts and football matches.
In fact, the Banter Police would need Banter Police because they are also employees and must be protected. Funny how Labour do not seem to be suggesting that Antisemitic protests calling for all white people and Jews to be murdered require Banter Police.
Can you imagine a debate in the Commons following these rules? There would be a very long silence, which would stop anything happening, which would be a good outcome!
I wonder if the Deputy Prime Minister, a well-known thief and bung taker, has taken note of this? After all, her well documented mode of banter generally consists of calling anyone remotely Tory C___s and claiming they all look at her legs – have you actually looked at her legs? Stupendously bandy. The country as a whole needs protection from her thieving, bung taking gob.
Incidentally, the most documented spout of gobshiteness from her was in a Bar at the Commons. How many Banter Police will Westminster require?
It would need a few thousand, but it is the penalty that needs to be discussed. How about being sent to France in a very unseaworthy plastic boat with a duff engine on a stormy night? That would soon sort everything out.
Don’t forget that Ranting is also an electoral fraudster by being registered to vote at both her homes and therefore should be banned from public office for life.
Isn’t this the sort of dogma that started in the 30’s?