Mick Hartley

Author: Mick Hartley

  • The arc of the moral universe

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  • Christianity in the Middle East

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  • Artwashing

    term used to describe partnerships with museums and artists to obscure ethically dubious political connections.

    “Tate’s partnerships with these organizations directly undermine its commitment to equality and social impact,” the letter states. “We believe Tate has a profound moral duty, if not a legal one, to divest from its affiliations with the Israeli state.”

    The Zabludowicz family’s ties to Israel stem primarily from Poju Zabludowicz’s business dealings.

    As CEO of real estate investment firm Tamares Group, he previously funded the British Israel Communication and Research Centre and technology companies with Israeli security contracts.

    In 2023, the Zabludowiczes were forced to close their private London museum after facing years of similar anti-Israel pressure.

    Britain’s cultural anti-Israel purge has already claimed scalps elsewhere in London’s art scene.

    Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art caved to radical student activists last month, severing ties with prominent Jewish philanthropists Candida and Zak Gertler after a targeted campaign against their personal relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Artwashing. Of course  Like pinkwashing, where Israel's liberal attitude to gays, in marked contrast to their Middle Eastern neighbours, was seen as a cunning plan to whitewash their hideous Jewish oppressiveness. To come: "democracywashing", "freepresswashing", "nobelprizewinningwashing"….

  • Antisemitism at the BBC “normalised”

    istleblower has said anti-Semitism at the BBC has become “normalised” and accused the broadcaster of failing to take seriously repeated claims of anti-Semitic behaviour and attitudes within the organisation.

    The experienced member of staff, who is Jewish, said they had been forced to endure anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli comments on a near-daily basis, only for their concerns to be dismissed by managers.

    Writing anonymously for The Telegraph, they said: “Anti-Semitism exists in the newsrooms of Britain’s public service broadcaster. It has done for years, and it is alive and well today, refuelled by the events of Oct 7 and after.

    “I have experienced it first hand, too much, in my career at the corporation, both before and since the Hamas attacks.”…

    They also accuse Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, of failing to get a grip on the problem of anti-Semitism within the corporation, despite his emailing all staff in February to say there was no place for racist abuse of any kind within the BBC.

    The whistleblower, who has asked for their identity not to be revealed for fear of being “marked out”, writes: “For Jewish staff, the experience of anti-Semitism and Israel bashing is a daily one and Tim Davies’s statement rings hollow. Actions speak louder than words, and sadly when it comes to anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism at the BBC, its actions practically are mute.”

    No surprise, sadly.

  • Faces of the North

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    [Photos: Ragnar Axelsson]

    All but the last three images are from Axelsson's Faces of the North series, first published in 2004. The last three, more recent, are featured in the Photographers' Gallery exhibition.

    Previously, Sled Dogs.

  • Frailty, thy name is sportswoman

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    WaPo article here.

    Her Wikipedia entry:

    Sally Jenkins (born October 11, 1960) is an American sports columnist and feature writer for The Washington Post, and author. She was previously a senior writer for Sports Illustrated. She has won the AP Sports Columnist of the Year Award five times, received the National Press Foundation 2017 chairman citation, and was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize. She is the author of a dozen books. Jenkins is noted for her writing on Pat Summitt, Joe Paterno, Lance Armstrong, and the United States Center for SafeSport.

    She was a defender of Lance Armstrong even after he admitted doping, so clearly has some history of support for cheating men. Perhaps her glittering career is less about a deep knowledge and love of sport, and more about knowing where the power lies.

    But really – "So it’s a step backward for so many women athletes to cry frailty in the debate over trans participation". That's just breath-takingly stupid and offensive. Would flyweight boxers be crying frailty if heavyweights were allowed in the ring against them? 

  • Aleppo

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  • At Scotland’s Supreme Court

    sex” means in this context: biological sex, or legal sex – as defined by a GRC.

    Well OK. This is where it gets complicated. Needlessly complicated, you might say. 

    In late 2022, Scotland’s Court of Session ruled that sex, for the purposes of the Equality Act, was “not limited to biological or birth sex” and included “those in possession of a GRC”. It’s that judgement, and its widespread implication for the provision of single-sex spaces and service provision, that was taken to the Supreme Court.

    The case put forward by For Women Scotland, expressed in court through Aidan O’Neill KC, is that: “In the Equality Act, sex just means sex, as that word and the words woman and man are understood and used in ordinary, everyday language, used every day in everyday situations by ordinary people.” The Scottish government argues that a transgender woman with a GRC is entitled to the same protection under the Equality Act as those who are born female.

    The implications of the Scottish government case, as argued by Ruth Crawford:

    Crawford confirmed to the court that a lesbian association of 25 members or more would not be able to restrict membership to those who are born female. Natal males – in the language of the court, meaning those born male – with a GRC who were attracted to females could not be refused entry. The only way for these trans women to be excluded would be to regroup as an association which seeks to advance a protected philosophical belief: in this instance, the gender-critical belief that sex is immutable. Those inside the court building have reported “audible intakes of breath”. Under this scenario, lesbians were no longer lesbians but rather, as the academic Jo Phoenix put it, “gender-critical women attracted to other gender-critical women”: this was sexual orientation being replaced by “belief orientation”.

    “This has a chilling effect on these kinds of organisations, doesn’t it?” Justice Ingrid Simler asked the Scottish government’s representative: a lesbian association would not only have to include natal males with GRCs, but also those who identified as women but who did not hold a GRC, because the law dictates that you cannot ask if someone has a GRC. “No, you cannot,” Crawford confirmed. This was grade-A catch-22 material. “If they simply want to associate as a group of lesbians… do you say that it doesn’t have a chilling effect?” Simler pressed again. “I say it doesn’t m’lady,” Crawford replied.

    “It was just gobsmacking the way she dismissed our concerns, our legal rights, actually our existence,” Sally Wainwright, who helped write the Lesbian interveners’ case, told me. “She actually denied the existence of same-sex attraction as a protected characteristic. Their position is, in my opinion, really beyond the pale: lesbians don’t matter. If men can be lesbians, then what does same-sex attraction mean? It doesn’t mean anything.”

    When lawyers take over and sense goes out the window. You'd need the Dickens of Bleak House to unravel these fog-bound legal mysteries.

  • Not progressive

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  • Picking sides

    From NK News:

    Russia’s defense chief arrived in North Korea on Friday for talks with the country’s top military and political brass, as DPRK troops fight for Moscow in its conflict with Ukraine.

    Meanwhile:

    South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol met a visiting Ukrainian delegation on Wednesday and discussed joint efforts to counter North Korean military support for Russia’s invasion, amid attention on whether Seoul will send weapons and a monitoring team to Ukraine.

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