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This made me bust out laughing

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Online conservative guys obsessed with movie casting have spent years insisting that all that matters is that the actor looks as much like the character as possible. So you can't try to make the cast more diverse, you have to cast who looks like the character exactly. Anyway after one round of people suggesting a trans actress who looks uncannily like Zelda play Zelda in the Legend of Zelda movie they're going "well, there are more important things than looking like the character". Fellas, I'm starting to think these people just want to keep marginalized people from playing anyone

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It’s funny how, ever since October 2023, we’ve all heard the usual spiels of “antizionism-not-antisemitism,” and of the usual crowd claiming to focus on “real” antisemitism. Well. There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of antisemitic attacks and aggressions against non Israeli diaspora Jews—so they shouldn’t feel too conflicted speaking about those, right? Even children and the elderly have been targeted. When will they speak up about them?

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The commissioner — Billy Long, a Republican — was the sixth leader the agency has had since the start of the year. Commissioners are appointed to five-year terms, and it is customary to allow appointees from previous presidents to finish out their terms. (Trump fired the Biden appointee back in January.)

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(c) Nikita Titov

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We are hard-nosed politicians. We are not shrinking violets who run around being easily offended and we are used to dealing with the extremes of human emotions and catastrophe through our parliamentary case work in the past.

Even with decades of these experiences, we were still stunned into silence by the evidence that we received as independent chairs of the Board of Deputies Commission on Anti-Semitism, particularly from young people in the Jewish community.

We spent months hearing evidence from the community, professionals and students about their experiences of anti-Semitism and were alarmed by the combination of the rawness of the impact of people’s everyday experiences intertwined with the extraordinary routines and normality within which this is occurring.

We are two non-Jews from opposite sides of the political spectrum and we have both come to realise that if our Jewish community is facing discrimination, this is a failure of our society. We must ensure that everyone enjoys the rights and protections that we have worked so hard to develop over many years.

What are we meant to say as hardened politicians to a young Jewish female performer who told us that following October 7 venues and promoters, who the artist had worked with for years, no longer wanted to engage with her? Or to students who saw their research staff members coming from an encampment with a megaphone, and disabilities liaison staff members who Jewish student’s trust with their health records shouting for an Intifada?

We were told about the experience of a Jewish member of a professional body describe that body as taking years to investigate incidents of anti-Semitism, and heavily editing articles about anti-Semitism and the Jewish experience so as not to cause “offence” to its to broader membership.

We heard about the noisy demonstrations and how intimidating people find the current environment, but as we dug deeper what really scared us was the increasing normalisation of far more extreme, personalised and sometimes life changing impact directed at individuals purely and simply because they are Jewish. Worrying dilemmas of where Jewish professionals believed that their professional body was actively discriminating against them but where they required membership from this body to be able to work and acquire the necessary protections.

One of our 10 recommendations is that anti-Semitism cannot simply be sidelined as an issue of religious difference, allowing organisations to pretend to themselves that they don’t have to deal with the thornier issue of racism directed against individual human beings.

This is an urgent issue not just for the Jewish community but for the United Kingdom as a whole. Jews have lived in this country for centuries and they have contributed greatly to our country. Any attempt to marginalise British Jews in our professions, cultural life, public services or any other arena harm us all.

We are all harmed if we tolerate the abuse of some of our fellow citizens by those who hold warped or extreme views. All we are trying is achieve is to add value to what others are already doing.

Typically with reports, we send a list of recommendations to government and this report certainly will be placed on the table of the Prime Minister and his Ministers and that of every political party leader.

But there is a wider responsibility that we are concerned about. All our institutions, public sector and private sector have a responsibility to their Jewish employees, customers, neighbours and partners, to ensure that they are treated with equal respect and are able to get on with their lives with no negatives.

Our recommendations are intended to help everybody to step up to the mark and play their small role in ensuring that we can each say to our Jewish friends, whoever they are and wherever they are, that you are not alone in our country.

Anti-Semitism has become normalised in middle-class Britain, a Government-backed report has found.

The review, co-authored by Lord Mann, the Government’s anti-Semitism adviser, and Dame Penny Mordaunt, the former defence secretary, warned that Jewish people in the UK were suffering increasing prejudice “in our professions, cultural life [and] public services” and felt they were “tolerated rather than being respected”.

The report, commissioned by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the country’s largest Jewish community organisation, found anti-Semitism to be pervasive in the NHS, at universities and in the arts.

The inconsistent policing of hate crimes against Jews, including at pro-Palestine protests, was also highlighted.

Writing in The Telegraph, Lord Mann and Dame Penny said they had been “stunned into silence” by the evidence received during six months of research for the Commission on Anti-Semitism.

They said: “We heard about the noisy demonstrations and how intimidating people find the current environment, but as we dug deeper, what really scared us was the increasing normalisation of far more extreme, personalised and sometimes life-changing impact directed at individuals purely and simply because they are Jewish.”

The pair added: “We are two non-Jews from opposite sides of the political spectrum and we have both come to realise that if our Jewish community is facing discrimination, this is a failure of our society.”

Judaism ‘should be recognised as an ethnicity’

Among 10 recommendations made in their report, which will be published on Tuesday and considered by the Government, are recognising Judaism as an ethnicity, an overhaul of the policing of anti-Semitic crimes and the launch of an “Antisemitism Training Qualification” for employers.

After the Oct 7 attacks, anti-Semitic incidents hit record highs in 2023 and 2024, according to the Community Security Trust, which monitors reports of anti-Jewish hate in Britain.

The co-authors said that British Jews were often “held responsible for the actions of the Israeli government,” which are frequently the subject of pro-Palestine protests.

The report also raised concerns that police forces had struggled to effectively tackle anti-Jewish hate, arguing “improvements can be made to ensure that there is a consistent standard and understanding of anti-Semitism across all police forces throughout the country”.

The war in Gaza following the Oct 7 attacks triggered mass protests that were branded “hate marches” by Suella Braverman, the then home secretary, in October 2023.

Police forces have repeatedly been accused of a “two-tier” approach for allowing what critics have described as “intimidating” pro-Palestine protests outside Jewish places of worship.

Earlier this year, The Telegraph revealed that a Jewish counter-protester was arrested by the Metropolitan Police after he briefly held a sign satirising a Hezbollah terrorist leader at a pro-Palestine march.

Turning to the health service, researchers found “many Jewish employees within NHS organisations” felt that issues in their workplace were not being addressed and that it had been “swept under the carpet”.

“From evidence that we heard, we can identify that there is a specific unaddressed issue of anti-Semitism within the NHS,” they wrote.

Jewish doctors in the NHS have reported a surge in anti-Semitic abuse from colleagues since Oct 7, according to the General Medical Council (GMC), the independent body which regulates the UK medical register.

Several NHS staff have been reported for anti-Semitic activities, from workplace abuse to social media posts celebrating Oct 7.

In 2024, the NHS suspended a family GP who described the attacks as “a welcome punch on the nose” but later reinstated him, citing insufficient evidence that he was unfit to practice.

Campus concerns

The education sector was also criticised in the report for allowing the spread of anti-Semitism on university campuses and in primary school classrooms.

Writing in The Telegraph, the co-authors noted one campus where “staff members who Jewish students trust with their health records [were] shouting for an intifada”, an Arabic word which can be used to describe violent Palestinian uprisings against Israel.

Anti-Semitism on campuses has surged since Oct 7, with the 2023-24 academic year seeing record reports of verbal abuse, threats and assaults against Jewish students and staff.

At Leeds University, for example, a chaplain received death threats and rape threats against his wife after returning from his Israel Defense Force (IDF) reservist duties in Israel. In another instance, a Jewish student society was targeted by a bomb hoax threat.

The report also found “evidence that some faith primary schools inadvertently use anti-Semitic tropes when teaching subjects like Religious Education”.

In other professions, the co-authors found examples of professional bodies and trade unions passing motions about Israel that alienated Jewish members.

Last month, Jewish members of the British Medical Association, the doctors’ union, told The Telegraph they felt unsafe because of motions related to the Middle East conflict, which they deemed anti-Semitic.

Earlier this year, in April, a Jewish teacher was loudly heckled for challenging an anti-Israel motion at the National Education Union’s annual conference in Bournemouth.

Researchers also “received evidence about where an individual believes that their professional body is actively discriminating against them, but where they require membership in order to be able to work”.

Artists ‘cancelled because of their heritage’

In the arts, the report found “substantial evidence of more hidden barriers being put in front of Jewish involvement” and examples of cultural institutions “cancelling artists because of their heritage or ethnicity, or pressure from anti-Semitic organisations”.

Lord Mann and Dame Penny said they were moved by “a young Jewish female performer who told us that following October 7th, venues and promoters who the artist had worked with for years, no longer wanted to engage with her”.

The report found there was “almost nowhere” that British Jews can turn “where anti-Semitism does not seem present in some form” as well as “a failure to effectively respond by institutions across the United Kingdom”.

The co-authors concluded that anti-Semitism was “not understood as a form of racism” in Britain and recommended that Judaism be nationally recognised as an ethnicity, as well as a religion, so that anti-Jewish prejudice can be more effectively tackled.

Other recommendations included the drafting of a national policy on dealing with anti-Semitism consistently, to be followed by all police forces.

The report also asked the Government to come up with a plan within a year to make professional bodies and trade unions safe for Jewish members, and recommended an “Anti-Semitism Training Qualification” to be introduced by employers.

Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, previously said she supported the commission and would consider the recommendations of its report.

When it was announced in November, Ms Rayner said: “We welcome the launch of the Board of Deputies’ Commission on anti-Semitism and will look closely at its recommendations as part of our work to keep communities safe.”

Labour under pressure

The Government has been criticised by Jewish groups within the Labour Party for “performative” anti-Israel policies such as suspending trade talks and embargoing arms sales.

Labour Against Anti-Semitism, a campaign group, said the policies “added to a climate of intolerance and hate” toward British Jews.

Sir Keir Starmer is under pressure from Labour’s Left and allies such as France to go further and recognise a Palestinian state. Israel has said any such recognition would be a “reward” to Hamas.

While the Prime Minister is theoretically in favour of recognising a Palestinian state as part of a Middle East peace process, he is understood to be “reticent” about signing up to the French plans.

However, the mooted emergence of a new Left-wing, pro-Palestinian party under Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, could also increase pressure on Sir Keir to act.

In recent weeks, the Government was forced to intervene in a row over anti-Semitism after chants at Glastonbury music festival calling for the death of Israeli soldiers were broadcast live by the BBC.

Bob Vylan, a rap duo, led calls for “death to the IDF” while performing at the festival.

The Prime Minister described the chants as “appalling hate speech” and said the BBC had questions to answer over why they were broadcast live.

The broadcaster’s head of music stepped back from day-to-day duties over the row after Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, demanded more “accountability” from the corporation’s leadership.

Lord Mann previously told The Telegraph that “heads should roll” at the BBC after it aired a documentary featuring the nephew of a Hamas official as a narrator.

An NHS spokesman said: “It is completely unacceptable for anyone to experience racism, discrimination or prejudice in the health service, whether staff or patient, and the NHS takes any instance of anti-Semitism or discrimination extremely seriously.

“The NHS provides care and treatment for everyone regardless of race, faith, or background, and all NHS healthcare providers should have policies in place to address issues like this in the workplace.”

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”you have to learn how to disagree like an adult you fucking kapo” ah yes what a pillar of moral reasoning you are. Your response to that person contained absolutely shocking amounts of projection. Your lack of self awareness is astounding. The fact you feel entitled to call a Jew you disagree with slurs is disgusting. It’s insane to me that you can’t see that. But I’m sure you’ll find some complex way to justify or downplay the inexcusable. Seems like you’re pretty good at that!

Okay, we're talking about this Anon again.

These are the verifiable, documented facts:

You responded here...to a sentence I never wrote.

You falsely claimed I called someone a "fucking kapo," then treated that claim as fact.

That line doesn't appear anywhere in my writing.

In reality:

You wrote that sentence yourself

You placed it in my mouth

You responded as if I had said or written it.

You then built an entire accusation around that invention and treated it as evidence.

What I actually wrote was:

The Jews who know you in real life and accuse you of being self-loathing, an antisemite, and/or an aspiring kapo have a strong argument… while you have no argument at all.

That's a statement about credibility. It's not a slur, and it's not name-calling.

So you either misunderstood what I wrote, or are actively, knowingly lying.

Either way...I'm sort of concerned about you, Anon.

Are you staying hydrated? Touching grass occasionally?

Your tactic is easy to recognize because it has a long history.

Fabricated speech, projected guilt, and inverted accusations are familiar territory for people who know Jewish history...which is why neither Anon grasps this. Here are just some examples.

The Dreyfus Affair: A Jewish French officer was falsely accused of treason, convicted on forged documents, and publicly degraded for years because the lie served political needs.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Fabricated in Tsarist Russia and disseminated globally, this forged text claimed to reveal a Jewish plan for world domination. It was presented as authentic minutes from a secret meeting, despite being a plagiarized political satire with no basis in fact. The lie was sustained for over a century and used to justify state violence, discrimination, and genocide. It is still used today and is a popular seller in most of the Arab world.

Soviet Anti-Zionism Campaign: Beginning in the late 1940s and escalating in the 1960s and 70s, the USSR officially claimed that Zionism was a racist, fascist ideology. Jewish activists were accused of dual loyalty and labeled agents of Western imperialism. This campaign weaponized invented speech and ideological projection to repress Jewish culture, criminalize dissent, and isolate Soviet Jews from the global Jewish community. It is the basis of today's "antizionism is not antisemitism" lie popularized in recent years.

Talmud Trials: Rabbinic texts were quoted out of context or deliberately mistranslated by hostile readers, then used as proof of blasphemy and justification for burning thousands of Jewish books.

The Inquisition: Forced converts to Christianity were accused of secretly practicing Judaism. The evidence was invented, and the guilt was decided before the trial ever started. The crown needed some scapegoats to consolidate power and Jews are always good targets for that.

Blood Libel: Entire Jewish communities were murdered because someone told a story about a kidnapped child. The accusation was treated as truth. No proof was ever required.

Your logical fallacy, Anon, is the false attribution.

Your moral judgment depends on accurate reference to make a meaningful moral argument. Instead of an accurate reference, you assigned blame based on a sentence you supplied, not one you or anyone else received.

I will not turn out my pockets out for you, Anon, and your cheap rhetorical dishonesty demeans us both.

History is Your Friend:

Surprisingly good, given that it's Wikipedia:

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idk it really bothers me when people make fun of women and try to justify it by saying White Women or Straight Women or Cis Women or whatever because 85% of the time theyre not criticizing white supremacy or heterosexuality or anything to do with harmful gender stereotypes, they're just making fun of women who Happen to belong to a specific group & are trying to justify their misogyny (intentionally or not) by slapping CISHET onto it

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Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv and cities across Israel on Saturday evening to call for a hostage deal and ceasefire agreement before Israel launches its planned mission to conquer Gaza City, as the families of the captives called for a general strike in opposition to the plan that they warn will mark a death knell for their loved ones.

The protests, which were some of the biggest in months, came days after the cabinet decided to seize the densely populated Palestinian city despite the military’s objections that the move would imperil the captives, needlessly endanger troops, and deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

“A bright red flag is waving over the government’s decision to sacrifice our loved ones,” said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum in a press release before Saturday’s rallies. The Forum urged decision-makers: “Reach a comprehensive hostage deal, stop the war, bring us back our loved ones — their time is up.”

The Families Forum, which represents the majority of the hostage families, also held rallies in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the Shaar HaNegev Junction in the south, and Kiryat Gat, with smaller gatherings in dozens of other locations.

Speaking before a crowd of at least 10,000 people at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, former captive Sharon Aloni-Cunio marked Tu B’Av, the Jewish festival of love that begins Saturday, with a speech about her husband David Cunio, who remains in captivity.

She said after seeing hostages Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski emaciated in propaganda footage last week, “I thought about my David: How much does he weigh? When did he last eat? Will he also be asked to dig his own grave?”

“Now, when eternal-war mongers are pushing all of us to a terrible disaster, they’re not even doing it for the hostages — they say out loud that they’re willing to sacrifice the hostages,” she said, slamming the government’s decision to expand the fighting and take over Gaza City.

She added that her young daughter Yuli, who was released with twin sister Emma and Sharon during the November 2023 ceasefire, “is asking me if her dad no longer loves her because he hasn’t yet come back from Gaza.”

“I say to all decision-makers: If, God forbid, anything happens to my David, or to any other hostage, it’s on your hands,” she said.

Eliya Cohen, who was released from Hamas captivity in February as part of the last truce-hostage deal, also spoke at Hostages Square: “Today is Tu B’Av, and I, with God’s help, am standing here next to my woman, after being sure for 505 days that she was murdered in the shelter where we hid” during the Hamas massacre at the Reim-area Nova music festival on October 7, 2023.

“I was saved, came back, and she was waiting for me,” he said. “Today we could have celebrated, but it’s impossible… when we know that there are families that didn’t get that chance. That there are still people there who are unsure if they’ll get to love again.”

Following harrowing footage of captives David and Braslavski last week, Cohen said “the writing was on the wall” that the hostages were being starved, adding that the cabinet’s decision to take over Gaza City puts them in still more danger.

“The decision to take over Gaza stresses me out. I know what happens to the hostages when the fighting intensifies,” he said.

Cohen called for a comprehensive deal to end the war and release all 50 remaining hostages: “I know what it’s like to come back in a partial deal. I live with daily feelings of guilt, and don’t wish upon anyone to feel what it’s like to leave a brother behind.”

Nearby, at the anti-government, pro-hostage deal protest in front of the Begin Street entrance to the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, speakers urged soldiers to refuse to serve in the expanded fighting, and called on opposition heads as well as business, labor and academic leaders to bring the country to a standstill.

“An entire county is held hostage by Hamas and the government of Israel,” said Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker. “What needs to be done? The country needs to grind to a halt, now.”

“The mission you’ll be given is participation in the killing of hostages,” said Shai Mozes, nephew of former hostage Gadi Mozes, in a speech before thousands of people at the demonstration. “In this situation, there is no other choice but to refuse.”

The mother of a combat officer in the IDF reserves, introduced only as Bat-El, told the listening crowd that soldiers are wasting away physically and mentally and are deprived of proper defensive equipment.

The Gaza City takeover plan “puts Israel on the sure path to a forever war that will cause the death of the hostages, cause the deaths of hundreds of soldiers, cause the destruction of Israel’s image,” she said.

“Don’t agree to enter Gaza,” she urged. “Refuse to participate in an overtly illegal war.”

While the speakers did not mention the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as a reason to refuse to fight there, some protesters held up signs calling on soldiers to refuse to serve for that reason as well.

Elsewhere in Tel Aviv, several hundred left-wing activists held a silent protest, displaying signs showing pictures of Palestinian children killed by the IDF in Gaza.

Following the speeches on Begin Street, some protesters hoisted flaming torches as they prepared to march around the IDF headquarters in protest of the cabinet plan, alongside thousands more who joined from the Hostages Square rally a block away.

As more protesters gathered near Begin, dozens poured onto the Ayalon highway, blocking both northbound and southbound traffic and lighting bonfires, and were later removed by police who reopened the highway.

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[…] The spiritual anguish that the majority of Israelis are feeling, the suffocating, utter grief over the incalculable suffering of the hostages as well as the people of Gaza, cannot be overestimated. Not to mention the ever growing toll of military casualties and suicides as the result of a war for the sake of war with no plausible, achievable goal other than the complete occupation of Gaza. And then what?

The entire Israeli public are held hostage by a government led by a man with a genius for political survival but no moral compass. Some go along willingly and others, I would argue a majority, are merely trapped in his infernal web. Many, with crushing sadness, fantasize of a life outside of Israel, a country we no longer recognize. Those with the means are increasingly likely to pursue it.

Some are so disheartened that they feel helpless to bring change. Others, bravely rage in the face of what are often the government’s violent tactics of suppression—perpetrated even against the demonstrating families of hostages—imposed by a police force controlled by the right wing devotee of Meir Kahane, Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir.

While Gaza and Gazans are being obliterated, Israeli society, always fractious, is gradually disintegrating. I’m not sure that the Jewish community outside of Israel recognizes how broken and fragile Israel and its democracy have become. Hamas, however, certainly does. At a time when Netanyahu is intending to broaden the war into the whole of Gaza, there is nothing but a Pyrrhic victory left to pursue. It’s time to end the war and release the hostages. 70% of the Israeli public agrees. Time is running out.

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Over the weekend, Jews around the world observed Tisha B’av, Judaism’s day of mourning that commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. On Monday, Netanyahu opened his cabinet meeting with a reference to those events: “1,955 years ago, following Tisha B’av, we suffered the greatest defeat in our history,” he said. “At that time, we were divided, splintered, and fighting with one another.” Today, by contrast, “we are in the midst of a great war in which we attained historic achievements because we were not divided, because we stood together and fought together.”

Netanyahu’s boast of Israeli solidarity—made as protests against his war policy and his attempt to fire the attorney general investigating his government roiled the country—rang hollow. But the prime minister’s reference to Tisha B’av was apt, if not for the reasons he thought.

As the Talmud tells it, when the Romans first laid siege to Jerusalem and the Second Temple, the walled city had supplies to withstand the blockade for years to come. The rabbinic sages counseled patience, seeking a diplomatic accommodation that would avert mass bloodshed. Instead, a group of Jewish zealots burned the city’s storehouses in order to force the population to fight rather than wait out or appease their adversaries. Jerusalem was conquered and the Temple destroyed. A radical minority yoked the entire polity to a messianic policy—and the result turned out to be a national catastrophe.

Israel’s Settler Right Is Preparing to Annex Gaza: A radical campaign that began in 2023 is entering its final phase.

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BREAKING: In a shameful moment, Attorney General Bondi shows she's not interested in being an impartial law enforcement chief, but only in hyper-partisan political grandstanding by refusing to answer direct questions.

Trump's whole cabinet is a disgrace.