It’s been two weeks since the horrific terrorism of October 7th. Within days, the balance of sympathy in the West tilted rapidly away from the atrocities and towards pro-Hamas sympathies. Antisemitism has skyrocketed here in Britain, which has been a safe home for Jews for hundreds of years.
A small group of us urgently felt the need to redress the balance and show support to British Jews. The result was the October Declaration which launched on Monday with over 200 high profile signatories from politicians to playwrights, including Sir Tom Stoppard, Professor Richard Dawkins, Lord Frost, Dame Maureen Lipman, Andrew Neil and Professor Niall Ferguson.
What we all share is the belief that antisemitism has no place in British life and firm solidarity with British Jews.
Who would have thought this should even be necessary?
Sadly the response to the attacks in some quarters was extraordinary and shameful. Before the people of Israel had the chance to count the bodies, there were marches around the world with chants of “death to Israel” and “gas the Jews”. To some academics in the West, Hamas’s blood-soaked pogrom was a fine example of decolonisation. Student unions who are normally all over the concept of ‘safe spaces’ tweeted cartoons of paragliders. People who normally obsess over hate speech failed to condemn acts of hate.
It was dizzying that after the worst examples of terrorism I’d ever heard of (and the stories and photographic evidence have only got worse) people were on the streets in this country to celebrate mass murder.
In the immediate aftermath of the terrorism a friend told she was worried about how her half-Israeli children would be treated at school. I’m ashamed to say I had no idea how correct her fears were. In the first week, four Jewish schools felt compelled to close, in London, in 2023. A letter was sent to a Jewish school in London, saying, “Well done Hamas. You Jews will pay the price for what you have done. From a PLO Team”. I know of another family sending their children to school in non-uniform because they feel unsafe. No British child should be afraid to go to school.
In the days that followed October 7th there have been 24 assaults, 35 cases of damage and desecration to Jewish property, 64 direct threats, 475 cases of abusive behaviour, including verbal abuse, graffiti on non-Jewish property, hate mail and online abuse and two instances of mass-produced antisemitic literature. The litany of examples on the Community Security Trust makes shameful reading. It is abhorrent that British Jews are being called “filthy Jew”, “dirty fucking Jew” and children have been told to “go back to the chambers”.
I was naïve and didn’t know antisemitism was this serious, alive and ready to burst through the surface.
The disproportionate treatment meted out to Israel and Hamas by the media makes it clear. The media quickly replicated Hamas’s false report that Israel bombed a hospital in Gaza. Intelligence experts expressed their surprise that anyone could have known who was responsible so soon after the explosion. The BBC and other media organisations around the world chose to put due diligence and restraint to one side and believe Hamas, an organisation which butchers babies and parades desecrated corpses through the streets.
The refusal of the media, including our national broadcaster to call Hamas what it is in fact and law – a terrorist organisation – has not helped. This misleads the public and creates a false impression that the state of Israel and a terrorist group are moral equivalents. They are not. It’s also an abominable affront to the dead, the bereaved and those living under the threat of terrorism. It is shameful that the media are being dragged kicking and screaming to call Hamas a “proscribed terrorist organisation”. Monsters would be better.
One letter signed by over 2,000 actors and artists – “bleeding heartless liberals” as Dame Maureen Lipman called them – condemned Israel’s military response but did not once mention the terrorism itself. When I first read it I was sure I’d made a mistake, missed the part where they expressed shock and grief about the butchering of babies and condemned Hamas. They did not. This letter was a stinging slap in the face to British Jews at a time when they should have expected commiseration, solidarity and friendship.
This felt very wrong.
I exchanged emails with Dame Maureen Lipman about signing the October Declaration. She told me she had written a letter of her own. You can read quotes from it in this moving article about the October Declaration by Allison Pearson, but I wanted to share her words in full.
I find it astounding that any newspaper published the heinous letter (by Artists for Palestine U.K.), signed with a flourish by the great and the not-so-great of our trendiest actors and the usual Jew-ish ashamed Jews of the peripheral Left. How dare they accuse the Israelis of war crimes against Gaza without once mentioning the bestial slaughterhouse which was perpetrated on Israel in that very same week or the hostages taken by Hamas – these are the entire cause of the current retaliation.
When babies were garrotted, women dragged by their hair and a family had eyeballs gouged out and fingers chopped off in front of their children – do they really think that Israeli blockades on the border with Gaza are a justification for such acts of violence?
Those bigoted signaturists, do they have no soul as well as no judgement? These bleeding heartless liberals care so deeply for the Palestinians (who, since 1937, have turned down no fewer than five offers of a two-state solution) that they espouse their cause at the expense of every other oppressed people of the world. The Palestinians are not Hamas, I agree; they just elected them. And, 17 years later, Hamas has done nothing for the Palestinians save stealing the millions donated in aid money while keeping them in penury.
I would love the signaturists to answer me this question: if your beloved country had been under attack for 70 years, with concrete tunnels under Birmingham and York and Ipswich, and rockets landing daily on Oxford University and Penny Lane and the Tiny Tim toddlers club, and the world despised your success in turning a desert into the most beautiful and innovative and free-thinking democracy in the region and wanted it handed back. And if the world felt that it was deserved when your country’s neighbours carried out bloody pogroms. Again. So, tell me, how angry and exhausted and how determined to defend your country against any future attacks would you be?
If there was a charter signed by a terrorist group which vowed to kill every Protestant and drive every English institution into the sea, which abducted 200 men women and children in Oxford Street (on Christmas Day) including Chelsea Pensioners and Nadiya Hussain and Mary Berry – and tortured and raped your sons and daughters – if that happened, Messrs Social Conscience, tell me, please tell me, in your view, what would be a proportionate response? To give the English coast back to the Normans?
What do you want of these beleaguered people of the book who are forced by their neighbours to be people of the tank? Do you want them, perhaps, to give back the land given to them by the UN – perfectly legally? Or to give up Gaza? Again.
Or maybe you want them to sit down and have gentle talks sitting on Persian carpets with avowed murderers backed by Iranian mullahs.
You artists purport to work in a business which, above all, demands empathy. Yet, you cannot see an inch past your own prejudice that the only good Jew is a homeless, victimised, impoverished one.
Shame. Shame. Shame on every one of you.
As the book of Proverbs says (12:18): “The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” If one letter pierced, another can heal. This is what the October Declaration seeks to do for British Jews. It has three clear purposes: to show solidarity with British Jews, unequivocally condemn the terrorism and ask the media to call Hamas what it is: a terrorist organisation. If there is a time to show we stand with British Jews it is now.
Our group has received messages from Jewish friends which communicate how necessary this was. Here are just a few:
I really wanted to share with you how completely empowered I felt signing the October Declaration today. Both, the Declaration and Allison Pearson’s article in today’s Telegraph made me stand a little taller and steadier. Everyone I spoke to felt the same way. So many of us feel like the rug has been ripped from under our feet. We feel alone, unheard and a little frightened about what the future holds for our Jewish communities in the U.K. and around the world. I am so grateful to all those who worked on this declaration and all those who signed it. We have a greater chance of creating a world we can all live in, if we are proactive about taking a stand on the important issues that are needed to maintain the healthy fabric of our society.
I felt heartened and then more so to read about the British Friends and Declaration and to know we have friends brave enough to speak out in the way you, along with Toby, Allison, Francis and your other co-organisers, are doing.
As a British Jew, I wanted to thank you sincerely for your involvement in putting together the October Declaration.
It means a lot to me and my family to know that at least some of our compatriots “have our back”.
It goes some way towards neutralising the shock I have experienced at the reaction of many of my fellow colleagues, many of whom have never once called for the Israeli hostages to be released – which has shaken me to my core.
It’s no good to say it “goes without saying”. It does need to be said. We do have your backs.
The public response has been overwhelming and it’s just getting started, which shows the importance of the initiative. More public figures have signed, including former Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, as well as 35,000 members of the public.
We’re humbled to play a small role in highlighting the underlying decency and wisdom of the British people. Please add your name. Sometimes all you can do is speak up and use your words to heal.
Sign the October Declaration
Laura Dodsworth is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller A State of Fear: how the U.K. Government weaponised fear during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her new book is Free Your Mind: The new world of manipulation and how to resist it. This article first appeared on her Substack page, the Free Mind, which you can subscribe to here.
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“Arctic zombie viruses in Siberia could spark terrifying new pandemic, scientists warn”
Try as I might, I can’t dream up a more convincing cheap Amazon science fiction series, presumably Russian with English subtitles. But I suppose it’s more interesting than “Disease X”
It’s already been done – Fortitude. Starts well, but then gets a bit silly. Worth watching though.
My wife and I are rewatching this again – and thoroughly enjoying it a second time round
‘Attack of the fifty foot Arctic zombie virus’
I can see the posters now!
“Villainous scientist melts some permafrost with a giant hairdryer and captures zombie virus in jar!”
An old concern dug-up for a new campaign in every sense.
Good old Guardian spreading fear again. A virus that hasn’t been discovered is now dominating the media. Disease X will be followed by Disease Y and Disease Z before going back to beginning of the alphabet like some sort of bizarre disease car registration process. Add in a smattering of ancient killer viruses that have been lurking in the permafrost quietly muttering to themselves ‘One day the vorld vill be ours!!” and you have the recipe for maximum fear. It’s the bogeyman under the bed of course, the Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, Frankenstein, Dracula. It’s storybook stuff for kids. Childish playground scare tactics. Bin it (the Guardian) and bag it.
Monkeypox was a bit of a bust but, hey ho, let’s give it another whirl.
Marvellous take-down Aethelred
Covid Started As A Fraud
latest leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, media, friends online.
Australian Open
“Get vaccinated Mate!”
Then Novak serves an ace to win the match
Thursday morning Windsor Rd & Ascot Rd Maidenhead
It was brilliant to watch.
What’s really happening?
Putin: ‘Odesa is a Russian city.’
Hanno Pevkur, Estonia Minister of Defence: ‘Russia’s war in Ukraine has shown that, in addition to equipment, ammunition, and manpower, physical defensive installations on the border are also needed to defend Estonia from the first meter,”
Any connection, given that Odessa is on the way to Moldova, then Belarus to Kaliningrad….encircling the Baltic States?
No, no……of course not……..
The problem with making predictions about people’s intentions is that when they don’t come true one can always claim that they haven’t come to pass yet, but will.
Is your position that Putin intends to have Russia to invade other countries?
If so, are you able to make specific predictions? Which countries and by when?
Because on the flip side you might be completely wrong and the Russian leadership have no intention of invading any other country and it all really is about making sure Ukraine doesn’t join NATO and nothing else.
What’s the test that you’re willing to submit your views to?
These are not my predictions. Russia makes the predictions. I simply report them.
It is Putin that is saying Odesa is a Russian city
It is Putin’s own FSB that is saying: ‘While the 9th Directorate of the FSB’s Fifth Service Department for Operational Information prepared for the occupation of Ukraine from July 2021, the 11th Unit of the Department for Operational Information, responsible for Moldova, was assessing plans for the next round of operations under the direction of Major General Dmitry Milyutin. In November 2020, the FSB’s strategic objective in Moldova was to bring about ‘The full restoration of the strategic partnership between Moldova and the Russian Federation’
FSB Outline of Operational Aims and Means, 21 November 2021
It is Putin’s own the Directorate for Cross Border Cooperation strategy document that sets out Putin’s expansionist goals:
‘The Directorate for Cross-Border Cooperation was established five years ago. The rather innocuously named directorate’s actual task is to exert control over neighboring countries that Russia sees as part of its sphere of influence.
Before August 2021, this so-called “cooperation” department oversaw Russian-occupied parts of Georgia. It was then repurposed to focus on Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine.
The department is headed by Alexey Filatov, who reports directly to the deputy chief of Vladimir Putin’s administration, Dmitri Kozak……Filatov’s team presented the document planning out the absorption of Belarus to Kozak in the fall of 2021.’
Belarus has already been absorbed into the ‘Union State’
Those pieces of evidence demonstrate nothing.
The US considers the entire Western Hemisphere it’s sphere of influence. They even have a name for it. The Monroe Doctrine. But that doesn’t mean they invade the countries.
And countries draw up all sorts of contingency plans. Again the US produces plenty of these. And make sabre rattling noises about invading Iran etc. which even still remains pretty unlikely.
So, as I expected you aren’t willing to submit your hypothesis that Russia intends to invade other countries to any sort of a test.
Much easier just to sit back and claim it hasn’t happened yet, but it will, sometime, in the undetermined future.
This is no hypothesis. The ‘Union State’ has already happened. The only question is how big will it become?
‘Russia’s goals with regards to Belarus are the same as with Ukraine,” Only in Belarus, it relies on coercion rather than war. Its end goal is still wholesale incorporation.”
‘According to the document, issued in fall 2021, the end goal is the formation of a so-called Union State of Russia and Belarus by no later than 2030.
Everything involved in the merger of the two countries has been considered, including the “harmonization” of Belarusian laws with those of the Russian Federation; a “coordinated foreign and defense policy” and “trade and economic cooperation … on the basis of the priority” of Russian interests; and “ensuring the predominant influence of the Russian Federation in the socio-political, trade-economic, scientific-educational and cultural-information spheres.’
Lukashenko (May 2023): “no one minds Kazakhstan and other countries having the same close relations that we have with the Russian Federation. It’s very simple. Join the Union State of Belarus and Russia. That’s all: there will be nuclear weapons for everyone.”
Monroe Doctrine (1823)
(1) The United States would not interfere in European affairs;
(2) The United States recognized and would not interfere with existing colonies in the Americas;
(3) The Western Hemisphere was closed to future colonization;
(4) If a European power tried to interfere with any nation in the Americas, that would be viewed as a hostile act against the United States.
So based on the logic you apply, you expect the invasion of all those countries by the US at any time. Because according to you the mere act of Russia declaring a sphere of influence demonstrates its intention to invade.
Until evidence proves otherwise, I now assume the Monro account is a bot.
Oh no, am I trying to reason with ChatGPT?
That’s my opinion as the responses do remind me of ChatGPT.
Well, in that case, you should be doing a great deal better:
‘A new study suggests it may be absurdly easy to convince ChatGPT that it’s in the wrong.’
Can ChatGPT Defend its Belief in Truth?, Ohio State University Dec 2023
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/01/20/concerning-safety-signals-revealed-by-hidden-pfizer-vaccine-report/#comment-930726
Not based on logic, based on evidence.
‘Russia and Belarus agreed to 28 integration programs in their 2021-2023 Union State agreement. At a press conference after his talks with Putin on Feb. 17 2023, Lukashenko claimed that the two countries had completed ”about 80%” of the programs focused on deepening economic integration, including ”key tasks in the tax and customs spheres.”
The ‘Union State’ already exists. The only question is: how big will it become?
What evidence do you have that the U.S. is going to invade nations within the Americas? None whatsoever, so a bit of a silly point to make.
After the Ukraine War, Putin hasn’t got enough resources to encircle his back garden, never mind the Baltic States. Which is handy because NATO hasn’t got the forces to help defend them anyway.
And after Poland, Germany was not satisfied.
Germany wasn’t satisfied with Poland, so Russia isn’t satisfied with Ukraine.
Classic logical fallacy. SIgh.
It is not a logical fallacy to listen to what Russia itself tells us.
It is, however, a historical fallacy not to listen.
Nope. It isn’t a logical fallacy to listen to what Russia tells us.
It’s also something I haven’t claimed.
Setting up your own argument, attributing it to someone else and then attacking that argument IS a logical fallacy, know as the straw man argument.
So that’s two logical fallacies.
Why not just make a clear time-bound prediction against which we can all test your assertion that Russia is intent on invading other countries?
Not only are you not listening, you are not even reading.
It is a historical fallacy not to listen to what Russia itself tells us.
‘To some observers, the strategy confirms what has long been obvious and, at times, openly acknowledged, by both Moscow and Minsk. Rainer Saks, the former head of Estonia’s Foreign Intelligence Service,…(said) that “in the grand scheme of things, this document is no different from what you might think Russia wants from Belarus. Of course, Russia will take control of Belarus….’
Within a ten year, or longer, timeframe, he most certainly does.
You will have noted that we are now ten years on from Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine.
He’s 71. Do you imagine him to be immortal.
How old is Biden?
What does that have to do with the price of fish..?
If Biden is 81 and running the U.S. why should Putin not still be running the ‘Union State’ when he is 81, in ten years time?
But you are correct, illegal Russian fishing has, through over fishing, dramatically increased the price of fish.
The bot picked up on “fish” and responded in the context of Russia.
‘The full tonto.’
A response produced in the context of my Ben Wallace quote in relation to Russia on the earlier comments. Is this what the search returned?
“What does it mean to go ‘full tonto’?”
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-does-it-mean-to-go-full-tonto/
Well done, Tonto….or not really…..
Over the last year of fighting in Ukraine I think Russia as showed itself up as being rather weak and in no position to be invading any other countries! With western help, Ukraine is already more than putin can chew!
Meanwhile, 27 civilians killed from Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk market:
Russia says at least 27 killed in blast at Donetsk marketAuthorities in Russian-occupied Donetsk accuse Ukraine of shelling a market on outskirts of city.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/21/russia-says-at-least-25-killed-in-blast-at-donetsk-market
‘The Donetsk regional military administration, meanwhile, said one person was killed and another was wounded as a result of shelling by Russian troops of Kurakhovo on January 21.
Vadym Filashkin accused the Russian troops of aiming at residential buildings, adding that a 31-year-old man died at the scene.’
Well, it WAS part of the Soviet Union when I was there in 1968…
Indeed, as were Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Moldova…….
‘…..the Presidential Directorate for Cross-Border Cooperation, a subdivision of Putin’s Presidential Administration, was established five years ago. The rather innocuously named directorate’s actual task is to exert control over neighbouring countries that Russia sees as in its sphere of influence: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova.’
‘Russia’s domestic, foreign and military intelligence services — the FSB, SVR, GRU, respectively — in addition to the General Staff of the Armed Forces, all actively contributed to the Union State plan. The resulting document was presented to Kozak (Deputy Chief of Putin’s presidential administration) in the fall of 2021.’
Why is it necessary to take Odessa in order to encircle the Baltic States?
Why was it necessary to capture Naples via landings at Salerno 1943 in order to defeat Germany, or to mount an amphibious assault on Inchon 1950?
The number articles which express shock and surprise at the turn of events over Hamas and anti-western and anti-semetism does not surprise me but it still shocks me. The ignorance and naievety of those in and close to office has been apparent but it still comes as a shock.
We have known for years there was little E in PPE but it turns out there was little P or P either. Their parents, just a few years ago, should have taught them common sense and survival skills. We’re going to need them.
“‘I was so naive to think the UN would help us uncover Hamas’s rape atrocities’”
This topic was what made me think that Alexander Mercouris, on the Duran, was being uncharacteristically naive at the start of the Gaza conflict. He suggested that Israel’s “proper” course of action would have been to hold fire and call on the UN to declare Hamas a terrorist group guilty of war crimes, thus gaining international support for action against them.
And that’s fine, if international organisations like the UN operated on principles of legal impartiality rather than political intrigue. In fact we get Western blocs, Muslim blocs, Eastern blocs all acting on self interest, and controlling the smaller states by threats and bribes. Nobody can possibly tell, even after investigation, who bombed the Ukraine nuclear facility. We will never know, even after investigation, whether there was a lab leak at Wuhan.
And so on. If I were an Israeli victim of October 7, with no links to Mossad, world banking or pathological hatred of Palestinians, I would not expect much impartiality from the United Nations.
The Duran is a Russian propaganda site run out of oligarch friendly Cyprus.
And Duran Duran is twice as bad! (Sorry, couldn’t help it!
)
Harsh but fair, could explain a lot.
The October 7th rape allegations have not been investigated because there is no one that will stand up to police investigations in Israel.
Screams without proof: questions for NYT about shoddy ‘Hamas mass rape’ reporthttps://thegrayzone.com/2024/01/10/questions-nyt-hamas-rape-report/
Once again this is a hasbara fabrication used by Israel to give cover for its ongoing massacre at a rate of 110 children a day.
Antisemitism is on the rise for a reason as Israel uses it as a shield so often that it’s worn thin. Even the US student allegations appear to be an operation led by Zionists:
Registered Israeli foreign agent driving contrived campus antisemitism crisis
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/12/17/registered-israeli-foreign-agent-campus-antisemitism/
Would it not be simpler for you to just post ‘More crazy stuff on thegrayzone, Al Jazeera (etc etc.) today’?
What do you find to be “crazy” Nigel?
Not going to entertain you, sorry.
So just fling accusations with no arguments?
Yep, sounds about right.
Its pretty normal for rabid zionists who can’t defend themselves and stand up to scrutiny to act like little babies.
Says ‘Brave Sir Robin’ hiding in anonymity who might as well be a bot for the value added.
Delusional Nigel living in the sweet ecstasy of ignorance willing to ignore the deaths and maiming of thousands of children incapable of justifying his beliefs.
Al Jazeera is a Qatari propaganda site. The Grayzone is rabidly antisemitic and supports all the worst authoritarian regimes.
Isn’t Max Blumenthal Jewish?
“Boarding schools allow trans pupils to sleep in dorms of their preferred gender”
Teenage boy: “I’m a girl, I want sleep with the other girls”
What could possibly go wrong?
Happy New Year to everyone BTL. (Recovering a seasonal bug so struggled to follow or contribute recently.)
Listened to Ivor Cummins and Dr Malik “everything of importance” discussion, interestingly it’s allowed on YT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pU8cEU725M&ab_channel=IvorCummins
Key takeaways for me were
Ivor does good summary of Jacob Nordengard’s thesis on the Rockerfeller role in what’s going on.
Both clear that there was no pandemic or need for early treatments (but quiet about the killer protocols and no discussion of how the apparent pandemic was simulated).
Both unwilling to discuss the “no virus” position or question modern virology/genetic sequencing. (Not surprisingly they also shy away from discussions about whether the earth is flat and other ideas they deem unscientific.)
Ivor says that what’s allowed to be said in the MSM has shifted. Discussion of the Covid jabs, origins and lockdowns are now allowed. They keep us distracted. Challenge to the climate scam is off limits.
Interesting discussions (bleating?) about the threats they’ve faced (and support behind the scenes). Although I share people here’s concerns about the unquestioning position TY and others “on our side” take on some issues I do understand that it’s a difficult balancing act.
The problem we all face is not getting distracted and to do our best to focus on what really matters – the fact that TPTB are trying to enslave us all.
What a busy bunch we are this morning !