Author: Mick Hartley

; friends….

Everyone who contributed to this article said they’d had “the conversation” about leaving the UK. “I’m a very British Jew and I always saw my home being here,” says [Marc] Phillipson. “Now I’m not convinced it will be. More for my children’s generation, I’m worried about being such a tiny minority. Even after October 7, Israel might be the safest place to live.”

“When I go to Israel I feel like I can breathe,” says [Steven] Steyn. “I was in a war zone the last time but it felt safer than London.”

In the film Chariots Of Fire, the sprinter Harold M Abrahams says something about anti-Semitism in 1924 that applies to 2024. “Sometimes I say to myself, ‘Hey, steady on, you’re imagining all this.’ And then I catch that look again. Catch it on the edge of a remark, feel a cold reluctance in a handshake.”

“Sometimes in the Jewish community we miss the fact that most people in Britain are horrified by anti-Semitism,” says Rich. “We need the help of public organisations who are rightly quick to address other forms of racism but have rarely thought about anti-Semitism before. And from liberal educated people who would not say prejudiced things about other minorities but think this is the one hatred you’re allowed to have. People need to speak up about it and recognise the impact it’s having.”

The representative "nice, decent, progressive" British institution would be the BBC. I wonder how much their coverage – every Hamas claim featured as main headline news, every Hamas death statistic religiously repeated – has contributed to this antisemitic surge.

led freedom of expression and the media and have detained and tortured protesters, critics, and journalists.

The cutoff in development assistance has helped to create Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has reported that more than half of the population – 23 million people – face food insecurity. Women and girls are among the most seriously affected. The UN humanitarian response plan for 2024 is underfunded; as of August, donor countries had contributed only 12 percent of the funds needed.

The loss of foreign assistance has severely harmed Afghanistan’s healthcare system and exacerbated malnutrition and illnesses resulting from inadequate medical care. Taliban restrictions on women and girls have impeded access to health care, jeopardizing their right to health. The Taliban’s education bans guarantee future shortages of female health workers, Human Rights Watch said. Donor countries need to find ways to mitigate the ongoing humanitarian crisis without reinforcing the Taliban’s repressive policies against women and girls.

More than 665,000 Afghans have arrived in Afghanistan from Pakistan since September 2023, having been forced out during a Pakistani government crackdown on foreign immigrants and refugees. Many had lived in Pakistan for decades. The numbers have added to the millions who have been internally displaced in Afghanistan and have strained existing humanitarian support.

Thousands of Afghans who fled the country after the Taliban takeover live in limbo in Iran, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries as resettlement processes in countries that pledged to take in Afghans, including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada, have been slow and inadequate to the needs of at-risk Afghans.

img-link” href=”https://www.shorpy.com/node/27519?size=_original#caption” style=”display: inline”>
[Photo: Shorpy/Jack Delano for the Office of War Information]

are biological women legitimately competing in the category she naturally belongs to. The International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, put it clearly:

We have two boxers who are born as a woman, who have been raised as a woman, who have a passport as a woman and who have competed for many years as a woman. This is the clear definition of a woman. There was never any doubt about them being a woman.

All the same, those of us who are concerned about the reactionary weaponisation of gender might do better to rethink rather than cement our commitment to the category of womanhood. We should ask what being a woman means, how womanhood is defined, and against what (and whom) womanhood is ‘defended’. Instead of insisting that Khelif is a ‘real’ woman, we should ask how dichotomous ideas of gender have been solidified in the discourse that is being mobilised against her. We should interrogate the colonial roots of medical accounts of female and male embodiment, and the construction of femininity through (and conflation with) whiteness. We should listen to athletes whose womanhood is doubted not only because of their outstanding athletic performance, but because their bodies are at odds with Western notions of femininity. In 2009, when Semenya was banned from competing for eleven months after winning the 800m at the World Championships in Berlin, the head of South African athletics asked: ‘Who are white people to question the make-up of an African girl?’

We know that Semenya has the 5-ARD DSD, with XY chromosomes and – having gone through male puberty -  male levels of testosterone. Nothing to do with racism. But here it all is, again – "at odds with Western notions of femininity". It's so….predictable. Such fashionable nonsense.

notice for violating hijab laws. To be clear,… pic.twitter.com/qUqjXcZGRa

— Elica Le Bon الیکا‌ ل بن (@elicalebon) August 15, 2024

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Full text:

Arezoo Badri, a 31 year old mother of two, has been left paraplegic after being shot by the Islamic regime over hijab.

Arezoo was driving in Northern Iran with her sister on July 22, when police flagged her car over a confiscation notice for violating hijab laws. To be clear, there was no claim that she wasn’t wearing hijab at the time, just that the car was associated with someone who may have once violated mandatory hijab laws.

The police opened fire on Arezoo, directly targeting her from the driver’s side, striking her in the lung and damaging her spinal cord.

Arezoo is now paralyzed from the waist down and remains in the intensive care unit.

This comes after Gasht-e Ershad (the “morality police”)—which the media last year misreported as having disbanded “because the Islamic regime said so”—increased their draconian enforcement by advancing to AI and CCTV to identify women not wearing hijab and plant a “hit” on them, as they did on #ArezooBadri

Please say her name and share her story.

p/a-freedom-worth-having?triedRedirect=true”>A Freedom Worth Having:

What the new legislation does is to give the existing law teeth. It is by no means perfect, but it has the substantial benefit of bundling together the law in this area into a package that contains an accessible enforcement mechanism: a complaints scheme to be operated by the Office for Students. Cases may be taken to court, but only after the complaints process has been exhausted.

The displeasure of many university leaders at the prospect that academics will be able to enforce their rights has somewhat surprisingly been heeded by the Labour government, which appears to be taking the side of institutions against individuals deprived of a just remedy for unlawful conduct. If we have law, it should surely be able to bite. And this is not just any unlawful conduct; it is conduct which breaches the right to freedom of expression, the cornerstone of all human rights.

In any case, the protests of the university administrators are surely misplaced. The OfS complaints process will be free and should be relatively speedy, and complainants may not take a case to court until the complaints process has run its course. The filter of an efficient and informal scheme of this sort seems bound to represent better value than the financial drain of interminable employment tribunal cases like that brought by Professor Phoenix against the Open University. If a case does end up in court, it will be in a civil court in which legal costs can usually be recovered by the winner.

The government has also expressed concern that the new Act will negatively impact the welfare of students from minority communities, a view shared by the National Union of Students and other stakeholders. From a legal point of view this is a puzzling objection. It pitches the right to freedom of speech against the rights of minorities not to be subjected to hate speech as though there is not already a mature and well developed framework of legal principle which holds these rights in careful balance, to which the new Act would be subject….

The freedom to say only uncontroversial things is not a freedom worth having, and challenging consensus is what universities are for. We must hope that repeal is not a done deal, and try to persuade the government to take a level headed approach to it.

that one of the lead lawyers on the review into Randall’s case described his treatment as ‘plainly wrong’ and ‘egregious’. According to Christian Concern, he has not given a sermon or worked in church ministry since his ordeal began. To date, neither Welby nor Lane has had the humility or grace to apologise.

It's a classic throwing the baby out with the bathwater situation. If the church abandons its traditional teachings, in a ridiculous attempt to keep up with the latest social trends, then it's losing its whole purpose – if it has one anymore.

Whether you agree with his views or not, Randall is a man of unshakeable Christian faith. He has been sacrificed by the leaders of his own church to appease the LGBT cult. In this, he is the ultimate modern martyr.

If there was a scandal involving Elon Musk – and, let's face it, the chances are fair to good – would it come to be known as Elongate?

rmination of Contract”.

He said the email claimed he was being expelled with immediate effect, without a hearing, because he had brought the institution “into disrepute”. The institute published his expulsion on Twitter/X the same day.

Three weeks later he was informed that because he was no longer a student, his trainee membership of the council was also terminated.

The decision effectively brought an end to Esses’ training, in which he had invested thousands of pounds.

Esses, a former criminal defence specialist, sued the bodies at an employment tribunal, claiming that he was discriminated against, harassed and victimised because of his beliefs.

The institute apologised to Esses for its treatment of him in a statement. It accepted that it breached its own policies by expelling him without due process and contributed to him receiving online abuse by publicising the decision.

Metanoia's statement here:

We are pleased to announce that we have reached settlement in the Employment Tribunal claim brought by James Esses against us.

Metanoia recognises that gender-critical beliefs are protected under the Equality Act 2010. These are the beliefs that sex is binary, immutable and biological and is fundamentally important. Whilst Metanoia specialises in professional training for those working in adult and not child psychotherapy it accepts as a matter of general principle the validity of the professional belief that children with gender dysphoria should be treated with explorative therapy, rather than being affirmed towards medical intervention. Discrimination against students because of these beliefs is unlawful….

Times are changing.

🛑 It's called "Equal Protection," folks! Today's court ruling reveals a shocking truth: Jewish students at UCLA were excluded from certain areas because they wouldn't denounce their faith. 😮 UCLA admitted this but claimed it wasn’t their job to step in. The court says… pic.twitter.com/GcKBSxgVfO

— Jewish Faculty at UCLA🇮🇱🇺🇸🎗️ (@JFrgatUCLA) August 14, 2024

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"The court says UCLA must protect the rights of ALL students, including JEWS!"

AP report:

 A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the University of California, Los Angeles, cannot allow pro-Palestinian protesters to block Jewish students from accessing classes and other parts of campus.

The preliminary injunction marks the first time a U.S. judge has ruled against a university over the demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war on college campuses earlier this year.

U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi’s ruling came in a lawsuit filed in June by three Jewish students at UCLA. The students alleged that they experienced discrimination on campus during the protest because of their faith and that UCLA failed to ensure access to campus for all Jewish students.

“In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith.” Scarsi wrote.

Scarsi ruled that the university is prohibited from providing classes and access to buildings on campus if Jewish students are blocked from it.

Yitzchok Frankel, a UCLA law student who filed the lawsuit, celebrated the order.

Scarsi ruled that the university is prohibited from providing classes and access to buildings on campus if Jewish students are blocked from it.

Yitzchok Frankel, a UCLA law student who filed the lawsuit, celebrated the order.

“No student should ever have to fear being blocked from their campus because they are Jewish,” Frankel said in a statement. “I am grateful that the court has ordered UCLA to put a stop to this shameful anti-Jewish conduct.”