Author: Mick Hartley

ometimes shading into overt antisemitism, have become a fixture of leftist movements in Germany. While some of the leftist antisemitism now resurfacing in Germany has its roots in the leftist radicalism of 50 years ago, some of it has a more recent origin in the mainstream left’s electoral courtship of political Islamists and Muslim immigrants—leading to an acceptance of movements and discourse that would have formerly been unacceptable in both the cultural and the political spheres….

The prospective growth of a large population of young Muslims who may be religiously or politically inclined toward hatred of Jews and Israel poses a particular problem for Germany in light of the Holocaust. Since the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel wave of 2002 and the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, many young Muslims have been conspicuous in Germany as “antisemitic activists.” These activists have been at the forefront of mobbing attacks on Jewish students, displaying antisemitic symbols on university campuses, and even physical assaults on Jewish students in grade schools….

A Germany in which antisemitism is culturally and politically acceptable should be entirely unthinkable. Sadly, it is not.

its own. The inadvertency of erections is what manifests the authenticity of desire, thereby flattering both their owners and their observers (when not dismaying them).

“Nothing about the organ per se produces rape,” says Butler. Like a gun lobbyist insisting that it’s the person, not the gun, that kills, this ignores the fact that some tools are more dangerous and unpredictable than others.

I hadn't seen that argument before, but yes, the gun lobby argument fits perfectly. "It's the person, not the gun." But without the gun, you don't have to worry about the person. Likewise, without the penis a woman doesn't have to worry about the person sharing her intimate space. Or these vicious American Bully dogs. It's the owner, not the dog, they say. But if you have a bad owner (and what are the chances of a bad owner with a nasty macho dog bred for aggression?) then the results, instead of a nip on the ankles, could be serious injury or death. Why take the risk?

As O'Grady notes, this latest book is "less opaquely written" than Butler's hugely influential Gender Trouble. It takes a certain amount of youthful energy, not to say hubris, to come up with page after page of the elaborately impenetrable postmodern jargon of thirty years ago. She clearly can't keep it up – as it were. So, inevitably, it becomes much easier now to see how bad her arguments are.

Jack Delano, November 1942. "Chicago, Illinois. Train clerk working on his lists in the hump office at a Chicago and North Western railyard."

[Photo: Shorpy/Jack Delano]

The increasingly unScientific American. Nice Reader added context.

A study of more than 100 birthing parents showed that pregnancy and birth cause changes in brain circuits that may be involved in empathy and bonding with the child https://t.co/4mlQeCR5mm

— Scientific American (@sciam) March 16, 2024

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— Michal (@itsmichalll) March 18, 2024

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size: 11pt”>The Wall Street Journal reported on Feb. 29 that Sinwar had sent a message to exiled leaders claiming that Hamas was winning the war in Gaza and that international pressure would soon force Israel to stop the fighting because of the high civilian death toll, which according to unverifiable Hamas and United Nations estimates, now stands at over 31,000 Palestinians. Israel estimates that it has killed approximately 13,000 Hamas fighters.

Safe in Qatar and Turkey, Hamas’ leadership outside Gaza took a different view: They concluded that Israel was crushing the group and seizing ever more ground, despite increasing pressure from the West for Israel to agree to a cease-fire. Yet according to the Journal, Sinwar assured his confederates that despite Israel’s tactical successes, Hamas’ four remaining battalions in Rafah were fully prepared to withstand a likely ground assault, and that Israel would ultimately yield to Hamas’ demands.

According to the Journal, Egyptian intelligence officials who have received Sinwar’s messages think he has “lost touch with reality.” Yet the success of Sinwar’s bloody Oct. 7 offensive and his presence on (or under) the ground in Gaza gives him credibility and authority that Hamas’ external leadership lacks. Practically speaking, the fighting will end when Sinwar says it does, so his assessment of Hamas’ strategic position and of Israeli psychology is the one that matters.

Whether Sinwar has become demented or merely diabolical, Bitton said, the Hamas leader’s hard-line stance does not surprise him. In his desire to rid Palestine of Jews for good, Sinwar has been nothing if not consistent.

padding-left: 40px”>Schools are allowing children to change gender without telling parents under Welsh Labour, The Telegraph can reveal.

Parents have raised the alarm about the “shocking” approach being taken to children who question their gender in schools in Wales, saying it’s taking place behind their backs.

The Welsh Government has promised to publish draft guidance for schools on how to respond to gender-questioning children in the spring, months after the first guidance of its kind was published in England that told schools to presume that a child cannot change gender.

But Merched Cymru, which describes itself as a grassroots group of ordinary women from across Wales, warned that children’s safety was being put at risk by an absence of guidance for schools on trans pupils.

All 68 schools in Wales that answered freedom of information requests submitted by the group said they would facilitate the gender transition of a pupil.

Only 28 per cent of the schools stated clearly that they would inform parents.

Some 38 per cent said they would not inform parents automatically, while a further 29 per cent said they would only inform parents with a child’s permission….

The report by Merched Cymru found that 76 per cent of schools instruct or encourage pupils to recognise their classmates’ preferred pronouns.

Some 70 per cent of schools offer a unisex option for toilets or have all unisex toilets.

More than one in five, or 22 per cent, of schools allow children to use toilets according to their gender identity.

The report also found that more than half of schools allow children to take part in sport according to the gender they identify by.

Where schools have had training on gender issues, the most commonly cited groups providing advice included LGBT charities Stonewall Cymru or Proud Trust.

Stonewall Cymru. Who would have guessed. 

The worry is that when Labour takes power here in England they'll be introducing the same Stonewall-inspired policies.

Jeremy Miles, the Labour education minister, has previously said he believes that “trans women are women, trans men are men”, while Vaughan Gething, the new Welsh leader, has vowed to make Wales “the most LGBTQ+ friendly nation in Europe”. 

Jack Delano, December 1942. "Chicago, Illinois. In the roundhouse at a Chicago and North Western railyard."

[Photo: Shorpy/Jack Delano for the Office of War Information]

11pt”>A local resident said "It feels like a personal message to us residents, we just feel so proud". Which is also a strange thing to say.

I suppose it's meant as some kind of comment on, as it were, the crude urbanisation of nature. Councils brutalising lovely trees, perhaps. That shade of green is the same as used in standard Islington Council signs.

But then:

The council believes the cherry tree in the foreground of the artwork is around 40-50 years old and is in declining health, with decay and fungi damage.

It says it has been maintaining and pruning the tree for some time – both for safety, and to help prolong its lifespan – and will continue working to keep the tree alive.

So the council's doing its best. The tree wasn't brutalised; it just needed cutting back. There are plenty of lovely street trees round Islington.

Oh well. 

story that accused Israel of abusing Gazan medical staff. Because demonisation of Israel acts as a fix to a nation experiencing an addiction to antisemitism, the item was widely shared. In the end even the British Foreign Minister David Cameron felt the need to respond, calling the report ‘very disturbing’. The BBC played its part by holding the item on the front page far longer than usual.

But when you break the BBC exclusive down, cracks emerge in the story. In fact the entire piece relies on human input from just six separate sources. Three of them were Arabic speaking journalists – the other three were witnesses from the hospital.

All six, from their social media history, appear to be activists celebrating Hamas and sharing material that glorifies terrorism.

Six sources – and all of them are problematic. Between the six sources listed above they could contrive anything – and BBC Verify would swallow it whole. Which is exactly how the BBC ends up acting as a Hamas propaganda outlet.