NEW: I wrote about Starmerite "Super Pac" chief and soon-to-be Labour MP Josh Simons.
A student "Marxist" who believed "the state of Israel should not have been founded", the 30-year-old has come a long way in a short time:
Ukraine flags in nurseries, hospitals and theatres, football stadiums and stately homes – but when you express solidarity with Palestine, you're inappropriately politicising public life.
Hospital ventilators, heart rate monitors, dialysis machines – thousands of people will die as a result of this power cut. Tell me how this is any different to Palestinians murdering Israeli civilians.
It gets worse. The guy in the video w Falter, pictured on the right guarding Israeli president Isaac Herzog & UK ambassador Tzipi Hotovely, appears to work for Mossad-trained SQR Group. Falter didn't just bring heavies to the demo, it seems – he brought Israeli state contractors.
NEW: Evidence suggests
@GideonFalter
's episode with the Met was set up.
Falter told
@thetimes
he was returning from synagogue – eyewitnesses say he was lingering for >1hr before the protest began, arriving long before shul would've ended.
My report
Last night a protester lying in the foetal position, shielding their head with their hands, was beaten mercilessly with batons, and the police wanna show us some paint on a horse. You could not make this up.
Ten people were arrested in
#Bristol
following violent disorder in the city overnight.
Glass bottles and bricks were thrown at officers while fireworks were launched at our mounted section. One of our horses was also covered with paint.
More here -
I have been informed that I am being replaced as the Editor in Chief of
@eLife
for retweeting a
@TheOnion
piece that calls out indifference to the lives of Palestinian civilians.
Something incredibly dark about Diane Abbott being silenced on her abuse in the House of Commons while her bullies in the Labour party are permitted to politically capitalise on it
HAPPENING NOW: Dozens of Jewish people hold shacharit (morning prayer) service at St Pancras Station in support of Palestine. Police attempt to break up the service to shouts of "Let us pray!"
Let me get this straight:
@Baddiel
only apologised to Jason Lee, 25 years after he blacked up and impersonated him, so he could *film it for his new telly show*? A show about how *anti-semitism is the most under-recognised form of racism*?
BREAKING: A former senior
@amnesty
official has been arrested under the public order act for holding a satirical placard describing Israel as an "apartheid c*ntry".
Aisha Jung was arrested on Saturday while attending a pro-Palestine demo in London with her husband and sons.
To anyone who thinks Labour will be the lesser of two evils on Palestine: we are weeks away from the head of We Believe In Israel potentially becoming a minister of state. A Starmer govt will be significantly more ideological about perpetuating the genocide than a Sunak one.
A few months ago my brother was walking through Finsbury Park when someone handed him a leaflet advertising a talk by Jeremy Corbyn. He looked up and it was Corbyn. The man is everywhere, just maybe not in the brunch spots frequented by lobby journalists.
Quite incredible seeing a 94-year-old get a seasoned broadcaster in a flap simply by saying the one thing that's unsayable in most of the media: that the people wanted Jeremy Corbyn but the establishment did not.
Noam Chomsky claims Jeremy Corbyn won an “enormous victory” in the 2017 election.
@MattChorley
challenges him on the facts of Corbyn’s leadership
Tune to from 10am 📻
Two weeks ago Levi Simon was in Gaza filming himself rifling through women's underwear.
Today a UK charity gave him a hero's welcome at a lunch event with the IDF soldier and "special guest star".
My report for
@novaramedia
Fortunately for me, I've lived in blissful ignorance of this highly defamatory tweet until today. Unfortunately for Siam, I've just written a piece on UK libel law, and have the numbers of a couple of good lawyers. In the meantime, my complaint's in your inbox,
@guardian
Yes, I too despise the way in which a cartel of clubs – a family, you might say – has leveraged its massive wealth and the adoration of millions of fans to secure itself a position of unchallengeable and undeserved power.
Now, more than ever, we must protect the entire football community – from the top level to the grassroots – and the values of competition and fairness at its core.
I share the concerns of fans about the proposed Super League and the damage it risks causing to the game we love. W
We have a Labour party today that is more anti-semitic than ever. A party that wants to whip Jews into line on Israel; that has expelled more Jews than in any period of its history; and that (quoting Forde) has created a "hierarchy of racism" that pits Jews against others.
The "Jewish community" mentioned here? Three people.
I can find you 300 east London Jews who have no problem with these flags whatsoever. Who see them as a sign of our collective liberation, in fact.
New: Doctor Faiza Shaheen, after winning a democratic selection, has now been blocked by the leadership and
@Keir_Starmer
from standing as Labour’s candidate in Chingford.
Had we settled for a doorstep vigil, this bill would not have been delayed. Had we contented ourselves with crowfunding, this bill would have passed within weeks.
Direct action gets the goods. In awe of
@SistersUncut
.
Starmer describes 7/10 as “the biggest slaughter of Jews – and that is why they were killed, do not doubt that – since the Holocaust". Reinforces idea that Palestinians are motivated not by a desire for liberation but by a hatred of Jews, wholly delegitimising their struggle.
Finally,
@JewishLabour
out themselves as the petty, ruthless genocidaires they have always been. Appalled that anybody would associate themselves with this group, and what's worse, that it was once taken seriously as arbiters of anti-racism.
If Keir Starmer has left a Black MP in disciplinary limbo for months just to torture her, imagine how he's going to treat people of colour, asylum seekers, precarious workers and other marginalised people as PM.
The
@JewishChron
has today published a piece of Holocaust revisionism by the far-right pseudo-intellectual Douglas Murray.
Here he is, openly defending Nazis (not only Nazis but *specifically* Nazi death squads):
Within hours of publication, the Cass Review into youth gender identity services had been torn to shreds. What a waste of four years of 'research', writes Gemma Stone.
NEW: Evidence suggests
@GideonFalter
's episode with the Met was set up.
Falter told
@thetimes
he was returning from synagogue – eyewitnesses say he was lingering for >1hr before the protest began, arriving long before shul would've ended.
My report
RESOLUTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL AUSCHWITZ COUNCIL ON THE TRAGIC EVENTS IN ISRAEL, APPROVED BY CIRCULATION ON 18 NOVEMBER 2023
The International Auschwitz Council by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland acknowledges with the deepest pain and sorrow the suffering of
Undeterred by attempts to portray her support for Palestine as anti-semitic, Greta Thunberg attends the demo happening right now outside parliament as MPs debate ceasefire amendments.
Rachel Reeves – who refused to apologise for celebrating known Nazi sympathiser Nancy Astor – remains in the shadow cabinet. Make no mistake: Keir Starmer is using antisemitism to purge the left.
Before I log off, I've a Baddiel story of my own to share: that time when Tracy-Ann Oberman lost her mind and started DMing my Mum, I contacted Baddiel (whom I knew had had TAO on his podcast) asking him to call her off. I was extremely distressed.
He said no.
I mean, Jeremy Corbyn fought to save Jewish cemetaries, pledged to fund Jewish security and had a visible presence in Jewish communities, but that never seemed to matter at the time.
As suspected, this incident was a setup. Gideon Falter wasn't just passing through: he'd organised a stunt to rile protesters, and the police attempted to prevent the altercation he was clearly gunning for by removing him. For once, I'm with
@metpoliceuk
here.
I was there & he was came with bodyguards & a cameraman. He didn't "stumble across the march" why are you not challenging him???? Do your job or invite people who were there for balance!!!!!
@metpoliceuk
@MetCC
the police were respectful to thim.
#propaganda
.
@RachelReevesMP
tries to weaponise anti-semitism. Doesn't realise she's speaking to a Jewish journo. Instantly drops moral crusade & says "It wasn't my decision."
This is why Labour hates its leftwing Jewish members more than any others: because they expose its sham antiracism.
It turns out you can be suspended from Labour for suggesting that there was antisemitism in the party, but that its extent was overstated for factional and political gain.
If that's the case, suspend me
@UKLabour
.
To those who continue to insist the Labour antisemitism crisis wasn't overblown: two years post-Corbyn, it remains totally acceptable for a journalist at Britain's newspaper of record to claim that a group of student doorknockers wants to massacre Jews.
(3) Labour supports a 2-state solution between a secure Israel & a sovereign Palestine; Young Labour urges the abolition of Israel, which could only be accomplished by means of a second Holocaust against the Jewish people. Hence Young Labour’s views are alien to the party’s. QED.
The fact Starmer felt the need to make a statement about kids identifying as cats but no need to distance himself from Peter Mandelson following reports of his "particularly close relationship" with Jeffrey Epstein tells you exactly how much he cares about safeguarding children.
On Tuesday I emailed
@jessphillips
, shadow minister for domestic violence, asking her whether she'd like to comment on the party's treatment of Apsana Begum, which according to an expert amounts to domestic violence. I haven't heard back.
Appalling Islamophobic rant tweeted yesterday by actor and longtime
@SachaBaronCohen
collaborator
@leekern13
to his 87k followers. Also a good friend of
@TracyAnnO
and
@RachelRileyRR
. Will any of them condemn this, or do Muslims not count?
BREAKING: Earlier this evening, Manchester University security guards locked rent-striking students into the building they're occupying. Video shows one of the D-locks placed on all doors inc. fire exit. Security relented after 10 mins when students threatened to alert media.
NEW: In deleted blogs, Luke Akehurst said Glenda Jackson made him “want to puke” & suggested the “hysterical”
@pollytoynbee
should “put a sock in it”.
As evidence of Akehurst's appalling views mounts, I ask: is there anything Labour won't let him do?
To lump these two different issues together is ridiculous. Indigenous people can't be colonizers, Israel is literally where Jews are from.
Palestine wasn't an independent & sovereign state pre-1948. Are you planning on bringing the British back to rule again?
39 migrants froze to death in the back of a lorry two months before the last general election. If you voted for anyone other than Labour, you knew what the outcome was going to be.
This perfectly encapsulates why philanthropy is the pits. We heap unfair advantages on individuals, who then appear benevolent when they (incompletely) repay society. How generous of Charles to donate property he wrongfully inherited (after deducting his costs, of course)!
The police also approached a black family having a picnic just out of shot. After the officers walked away, the toddler followed them. His dad called him back. "They're not your friends."
TONIGHT: What relationship does the world’s global Jewish population have with Israel?
Times Columnist
@Dannythefink
and editor
@RivkahBrown
join us to discuss their perspectives, upbringing and identity at 22:45
#Newsnight
The most vicious abuse I have ever faced, on Twitter or anywhere else, is from Tracy-Ann Oberman. So serious was it that I had to leave work early to deal with its impact on my family (Oberman had dragged my Mum into it), and was advised to report it to the police.
a) this call didn't happen b) rejection by friends/family/your community is the single most painful thing about being on the Jewish left, and has brought me to my lowest ever moments. Is pointing that out supposed to be some kind of gotcha?
The issue here is not what it says, but presenting it as a big pleased-with-it's-own-dangerousness WARNING, suggesting that it will lead to Jews throwing all their toys out of the pram and having massive hissy fits like the touchy privileged whiners they are.
🚨 NEW: Labour has reportedly offered to restore the whip to Diane Abbott... but only if she stands down from Parliament and doesn't run in GE2024.
Reportedly, at least four people are hoping to become the Labour candidate in her safe Labour seat.
Miriam Margoyles might be the only anti-Zionist, pro-Corbyn British Jew to have survived the Corbyn period not only unscathed but even more of a national treasure because she's just too fucking brilliant to cancel. Long live the queen.
We're watching consensus-manufacturing in realtime. Stewart defies the establishment narrative, a few centrist journos have a pop (leveraging identity helps), the JC runs a hit piece, then finally, he decides it isn't worth the reputational damage – and falls back into line.
@jamiesusskind
Thank you Jamie - there is a lot of horrifying anti-semitism in British society including a very disturbing amount in British political parties - and particularly in Corbyn's Labour party. Not enough attention is paid to anti-semitism in Britain. And I should speak about it more
Wow. A BBC editor & John Ware both wrote to Forde pressuring him to change his report, which describes Ware's Panorama as "entirely misleading". He didn't. Neither has taken libel action against Forde (Ware usually v litigious). I guess it was true then.
I would write to my MP about the US riots but my MP is Jeremy Corbyn and I think he's got the memo. Instead I'm going to write to Keir Starmer MP, who as DPP chose not to prosecute the killers of Jean Charles de Menezes and as Labour leader stayed silent on leaked racism 👍🏻
[Israel drops 65,000 tonnes worth of bombs on Gaza, slaughtering over 23,000 Palestinians]
Centrist journalists: *crickets*
[Houthis attack shipping routes in the Red Sea, killing not a single person]
Centrist journalists: Think of the SHEIN packages!
'It costs billions of dollars, and in the end that comes out of your pockets.'
@Lewis_Goodall
explains the 'geopolitical shifts and shocks' which will result from Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.
Anyway, some sad news…I was THE contender for a dream job. My literal dream job. 6 interviews & countless talks & meetings. They loved me. I’ve been told I didn’t get the job and the headhunter has advised me that I either close my account or don’t discuss my political opinions.
.
@margarethodge
hun you're being targeted because you're an apartheid millionaire who had the gall to call a man who stood up to apartheid South Africa a racist. Hope that clarifies x
Starmer saying it's a shame BLM's getting tangled up w/ defunding the police is like ppl saying it's a shame BLM's getting mixed up w/ Israel. These ppl don't want us to join the dots bc they know once we do, it'll be clear that confronting 1 injustice means confronting them all.
I'll just say it:
@Keir_Starmer
is an antisemite.
In his not-so-subtle conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism, he implies that all Jews want a nation-state, and those of us who don't must hate ourselves.
🇬🇧🇮🇱 // Keir Starmer speaks at Labour Friends of Israel:
"Anti-Zionist antisemitism is the antithesis of the Labour tradition. It denies the Jewish people alone a right of self-determination"
@Keir_Starmer
@_LFI
Is this a joke? A front page based on the feelings not of any actual Jewish people, but of the leader of the Tory election campaign, James "some of my best friends are Jewish" Cleverly?
BREAKING: A UK charity gave over £1m to a group described by Haaretz as "Israel's largest militia".
@JNFuk
made massive donations to the land defence org HaShomer HaChadash, which defends Israeli land and illegal settlements.
My report for
@novaramedia
Want to know something sinister?
Every teacher I've spoken to today says their school provides the Departments for Education and Health with regular updates on covid cases.
The government has not published any statistics on the number of teachers who've died of coronavirus.
The BDS bill is having its first debate in parliament today, just hours after Israel launched its biggest Israeli military assault on the West Bank in years.
At 2.30pm, Palestinian children will be dying in Jenin hospitals as Tory MPs tell us that to oppose this is anti-semitic.
Am told that tonight
@ApsanaBegumMP
spoke at a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party, inc Rachel Reeves, Wes Streeting and Yvette Cooper. Begum said her continuing domestic abuse via the party machinery was being "ignored" and broke down in tears. Many applauded.
Today the
@guardian
told me it has "taken the opportunity to remind our employee of the need to engage courteously on social media at all times. She has reflected on the tone of her posts and [...] has now deleted them."
Weird, can't seem to find the word "apology" anywhere.
Fortunately for me, I've lived in blissful ignorance of this highly defamatory tweet until today. Unfortunately for Siam, I've just written a piece on UK libel law, and have the numbers of a couple of good lawyers. In the meantime, my complaint's in your inbox,
@guardian
Benjamin isn't the only IDF soldier with a fetish for dead women's underwear.
Here is British Israeli soldier Levi Simon rifling through the dresser drawers of Gazan women and mocking them. Days later, Simon received a hero's welcome from a UK charity
Meet Benjamin, a French-Israeli soldier/pervert. For some reason he thought he could get more dates by posting a photo of himself with a collection of displaced women's underwear.
The scenes of hundreds killed at the Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist hospital in Gaza are absolutely devastating and cannot be justified.
International law must be upheld.
Hospitals and civilian lives must be protected.
Gideon Falter is one of the directors of JNF UK, an organisation which has funnelled over a million pounds to Israel's largest militia. If anyone should be arrested, it's him.
Some incredible stats in here, from a May
@YouGov
poll:
🇵🇸 >2x as many Britons support Palestine (24%) as Israel (10%)
🌹Among Labour supporters, its 41% vs 3%.
🇮🇱 Israel polls unfavourably *even among Tories* (-6)
The FA has put out a statement commemorating the victims, both Israeli and Palestinian. The idea it should light up Wembley with the flag of a state that is currently gearing up for genocide in Gaza is horrific and disgraces the dead. The sickening state of the UK media.
I question the value of gestures like lighting up Wembley.
Many cherish the escapism of football as a politics-free zone
But seeing as the FA insists on doing it, precisely how many Jews need to be lynched for them to be accorded the honour enjoyed by others? Or in what manner?
As I told Nick this morning, if in the 1930s MPs had abstained on a vote to stop my relatives from being slaughtered in Europe, I would have expected people in Britain to do everything in their power to get them to change course. Why don't we expect the same for Palestinians?
'I'm telling you my opinion, let me finish.'
'So you agree with me - the homes should be off bounds?'
Novara Media's
@rivkahbrown
goes back and forth with
@NickFerrariLBC
over pro-Palestinian protesters targeting MPs' homes and offices.
Let me get this straight:
Charles pays himself rent to avoid tax.
He bullies his tenants into bequeathing him their property.
He expenses £10,000s of gardening for the few days/year he lets the public visit his mansion.
If this were an MP, they'd have been sacked aeons ago.
Personally pretty inspired by 5,400 people chipping in a few quid to protect a man they hoped would transform their lives from going down in history as a vicious antisemite.