#anti-british statements

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Court Told Youth Plans To Renounce Britain, Be German," Windsor Star. June 25, 1943. Page 3. ---- Refusal of Lambert G. Kropp, of 1533 Goyeau street, to submit himself for medical examination in accordance with National Selective Service mobilization regulations, resulted in Magistrate D. M. Brodie to-day in city police court directing that the youth be delivered to the military authorities after he has served 30 days in jail. He also was fined $25 and costs or in default an additional 30 days in jail.

German-born and a native of Danzig, 20-year-old Kropp came to Canada 15 years ago at the age of five years with his parents and became a Canadian citizen. Two of his brothers are in internment camps.

In passing sentence, Magistrate Brodie said: "Although by law the accused is a British subject he was born in Danzig and has stated that he still feels by blood to be a German and intends to renounce his British citizenship as soon as he arrives at the age of 21 years, said citizenship having been conferred on him by reason of his father's application for naturalization."

Kropp pleaded guilty when his case was called in court. He was defended by N. J. Riordan. The investigation was made and the information laid by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

[ifwerefree]

Theres so much misinfo out there that I don't blame people who have a flimsy both sides "killing children is always bad" stance but it is still disappointing...

[arisatominakos]

the way that jkr and her supporters have weaponized her hatred of trans people so that everyone else looks away from her bigotry, her racism, her misogyny, her antisemitism, her labeling gay men with aids as pedophiles, her anti autistic statements, her fucking imperialistic colonizing british beliefs is hilariously telling. not only do yall fucks hate trans people; you hate everyone who doesnt live up to the white supremist perfect ideal that she raised you to believe with her books. fuck jkr fuck her fans.

[periprose]

Arachnid Anxiety

You're Spider-Woman, and you've been tasked with babysitting Mayday. Maybe you have a bit of stress that you need to vent about, and Hobie comes along quite conveniently for that purpose.

Genre: Fluff, reader having anxiety, Hobie giving her advice, very cute, reader is a Jessica Drew variant, perhaps mutual pining if you squint, takes place during the movie but before Miles arrives to the Society, terrible british slang attempts (sorry Hobie :'))

Word Count: 2.4k

Babies are hard to wrangle when they’re crawling up walls.

Of course, Peter B. Parker said that he needs a nap, just this once, and he needs someone to watch over Mayday while he sneaks away into the sleeping pods in the Spider-Society-System. Sometimes he and MJ don’t get sleep for days at a time, so you get it.

But Mayday is so curious, and you find yourself having to pull her prying hands away before she inadvertently tampers with things around Miguel’s labs and causes either a mass outage or a explosion or Miguel’s wrath. You understand why Peter is a little exhausted.

She’s a very cute baby, though, and you can’t help but coo at her as she clambers off the wall into your arms. 

“Who’s a good Spidey? Who’s gonna be the best of us?” You shake her up and down and she giggles, wrapping her arms around you. 

You instinctively flinch, feeling your Spider-Sense go off.

“Large statement to make. But I see where you’re coming from.” Spider-Punk comes up from behind you, and you turn to him. “She’s definitely punk.”

“Hey, don’t go claiming someone else’s kid as one of your own.” You joke, and Hobie scowls as he pulls off his mask.

“Don’t believe in claims. Or labels, for that matter.” He scratches his hair, looking effortless as he ever does, and you roll your eyes. “She is… who she is. Forgive me for using a descriptive word, Spider-Woman.”

“I get it.” You hold Mayday as she squeals at the sight of Hobie, and she motions in an uppy-uppy motion. She wants to be held by him, but he ignores her.

You never quite know how to feel about Hobie Brown. The Amazing Spider-Punk is revolutionary, known for being better than just his words– he holds himself to the very essence of anarchy. He practices what he preaches.

But you can’t quite get a read on the guy. You don’t know if he’s pulling your leg– or taking the piss as he would say– when he gives his bouts of advice while somehow simply being amazing through it all. He somehow knows what to say but he also isn’t the most comforting, and that in itself makes you drawn to him. He just happens to be kind of rough around the edges, and it’s because of that you know he truly means what he says. 

No sugar-coating, ever.

But you hate yourself, because you’ve somehow managed to fall for him. 

It’s not uncommon for Spideys to fall for each other. Peter Parker and Cindy Moon, Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy. But you know this is the one time it just wouldn’t end well for you.

You can already hear Hobie’s comments if he ever found out. He’d probably rebuke you even though you’d never try anything. Tell you he doesn’t feel that way and you’re delusional for potentially thinking that he would ever tie himself down. Spiders are meant to be swinging free and all that.

Even worse, he just happens to be beautiful. You’re positive that if Hobie wasn’t so anti-everything he would have stuck with being a runway model. His face is molded in a distinctive way that has you trying to catch his glance, even if he only looks at you with nonchalance, completely unbothered, not a hint of chemistry in his eyes.

It is with great displeasure that you find yourself wanting his bored attention anyways.

And so you’ve been swallowing your crush for the greater part of a year now. You’re sure it will pass like all things do.

Pavitr, as much as you love him, has told you many times about the “chemistry” between you and Hobie– and you have told him every time to fuck off. Not in an actual harsh way, because again you can’t help but love the guy, but because you don’t need false hope.

You’re just Spider-Woman. Another red-and-yellow suited variant of Jessica Drew, you might as well just be another Peter Parker. You know that’s not how you’re supposed to think of yourself, but it’s just how it is. Canon events brought you here, and according to Miguel, it’s not something you chose– you just happened to be there at the right time and place. You’re no Jess, who comes in on her motorcycle, raging heat and excitement on her toes– you are one of the many, instead of being exceptional like the few.

You’re not like Hobie, who is as far as you know, one of a kind.

“What’s on your mind, Spider-Woman?” Hobie asks as he picks through random tech on the desk in Miguel’s lab, taking what he feels is useful for whatever it is he does with the stuff. He’s never used your name, because he doesn’t know it.

You and a few other Spider-People have chosen to stay anonymous, for different reasons, and only Miguel and Margo know who you really are. Hobie has told you before that that’s pretty cool– he only chose to give up his name because it was easier to get along with people that way. Hobie knows there’s power in people.

“Just babysitting. Obviously.” You motion to Mayday, who takes this moment to thwip out a web and swing away from you– but you’re faster and you grab her back into your arms, and she pouts.

“Nah, nah. I mean that sour expression upon your lovely little visage, imbecile.” He pokes your masked cheek, and you find yourself blushing but pulling away from him. Hobie is like that– overly familiar and no real sense of space because he doesn’t care.

“It’s not lovely.” You retort, fully convinced of it because he has never seen your face, only your incredulous expression through the eyes of your mask. 

You think that Hobie is again being sarcastic about your unknown appearance, and because his back is facing yours as he searches through random shelves now, you don’t catch how his face frowns at your response.

“Disagreements about your anonymous-but-surely beautiful face aside– not that looks matter, mind you– you’re clearly miffed about something.” Hobie turns and crosses his arms, and it’s with a little embarrassment and comfort that you want his advice. Even if it’s kind of to do with him.

“Well, I guess, uh… lately I’ve just been feeling kind of down. Like what’s the point of all this?” You bite your lip, knowing Hobie’s feelings on nihilism. “I don’t mean like nothing in life matters, Hobie. I mean more that I don’t matt– I don’t… anyways, I feel useless. I don’t have anything special about me, I don’t really bring anything to the Spider-Society that wasn’t already brought.”

"Whoa whoa whoa. Nah, lady, you've got your priorities all twisted." Hobie pulls your arms, bringing you kind of closer to him, and rests his hands on your shoulders, making you listen. "This inner hatred stuff– that sick urge to feel shame and then blast it inside of yourself, all that repression, yeah? It's a crock of shit."

"Huh?" You and Mayday both peer up at him. You behind your mask, and she with her crocheted one. 

Hobie picks up Mayday, finally giving into her wishes to be held by him, and she immediately giggles. There’s a subtle smile on his face that warms him to you a little.

"It might feel good in the moment. It might even feel revolutionary." Hobie scowls, and scratches his jaw. "It's worthless. Notice, Spider, I didn't call you worthless. The very action is garbage, a visceral thing that brings no productive value– that's what they want you to feel."

"Ah, because then I'll never fight against the establishment, right, Hobie? I'll be too busy fighting myself." You say mockingly, taking on a fake-pretentious-Cockney accent, mimicking him, but Hobie gives you a chill look and nods.

"Now you're getting it."

"Aw." You slump and slouch and sit on the counter full of gadgets and gizmos next to him. "I know you're right, but… don't you ever get people getting mad at you?"

"You've lost me."

"Like… being so responsible." You roll your eyes as Hobie snickers and whispers the spider-mantra you all know so well. "Or just living by your own ideology so… efficiently. It's almost like a slap in the face to the rest of us Spiders. We don’t know how to cope, and here comes along Spider-Punk with all his personal assurance that even if things aren't alright, he'll make it alright for himself."

"Oi, trust me, it wasn't all that easy." Hobie sniffs and sits down next to you, holding Mayday close and then letting her go as she crawls onto the wall in front of you. "You really think I haven't had a bad day? I haven’t had my moments of self doubt, huh?”

“Uh… well. When you put it like that, it does sound kind of crazy.” You admit, and nudge him with your shoulder. “I didn’t mean any harm, Hobie. I just feel so… inadequate.”

“Just stop.” He crosses his arms and closes his eyes, and you feel that yet again, he’s somewhat unreadable. “Don’t think those things. You’re not inadequate.”

“But I–”

“Stop.” He grasps your hands, and squeezes them tightly in his own, and you wonder if Hobie has ever looked this seriously at you, his eyes soft yet firm with affection.

You’re in trouble, you think. Your heart is pounding and you’re really glad he can’t see your face.

“I don’t think you know how important you are.” He utters so quietly, in that very deep voice that has you leaning in to hear him better. “You’re not nothing, Spider-Woman. You’ve done a lot of good for your Earth-257, I’m sure, and that makes you something special. Like the rest of us– you’re kind of irreplaceable, right?”

“I guess.”

“Not ‘I guess.’” Hobie punches the side of your arm and you pretend to say ow, laughing a little. “If you didn’t exist, we’d all be poorer for it. Peter couldn’t ask you to chill with his baby, and I couldn’t be here talking your ear off.”

“But I’m not– I don’t really compare to her, you know?” You say without thinking, and then immediately squint at your own stupidity. 

“Who’s her?” Hobie is wary of how your expression is shifting. “Stacy?”

“Uh, no.” You inhale, exhale, and then decide it’s time to get it over with. “Jess.”

“Jess? Jessica Drew, huh?” Hobie smirks a little. “You don’t want to be adopted by her, do you?”

“More complicated than Gwen’s weird fantasy.” You shift on your spot on the counter, and pull off your mask after a minute of tribulations. “I’m… also Jessica Drew.”

You feel incredibly shy as Hobie takes in your face, wary of his every move as you feel yourself sweating, and he grasps your face gently, peering into your eyes and taking a look at your features, as if he’s really trying to remember them.  

“Huh.”

“What is it?” You say a little too defensively, and he shrugs. 

“You do have a lovely visage, you silly little sod. Even if it’s completely different from Jess’ face.” He laughs as you shove him away, covering your face in your hands. “No, don’t do that.”

He’s tracing your jaw, and he murmurs. “Maybe you could use a few piercings… a tat or two… ever thought about it?”

“No.” You shut your eyes. “I’m not cool like you.”

“Oh, shut it.” He leans in imperceptibly closer, and you blink, eyes open. Maybe Pavitr had a point that Hobie and you have something, because there’s not really another explanation for that look in his eyes. “You’re plenty cool, Jessica Drew. It was just a shit suggestion of mine.”

You think Hobart “Hobie” Brown is sweeter than you previously thought. You have half a mind to tell him about your feelings.

You and Hobie both look up, Spider-Senses tingling, and sure enough, Mayday is cooing from the ceiling– she leaps into your already waiting arms. She giggles at your expression.

Oh well, you think. There’ll be some other time to work up the courage to tell him.

Hobie half-smirks at her. “Way to interrupt us, Mayday.”

She looks at him all confused, tilting her head in a “huh?” motion, and you feel the same way, not entirely sure what Hobie meant by that and not willing to assume either.

He answers you by pulling your face in a sudden, swift motion, connecting his lips to yours, and in between the two of you, Mayday shrieks and laughs. She crawls off to the side of you, no longer smothered between your torsos.

Hobie is weirdly insistent– you feel like he’s been wanting to do this for a while, maybe longer than the length of your conversation (you don’t know if this is just a funny little fling for him, but you’re fairly sure it isn’t) and he’s a lot taller and lankier than you, so he really has to tower over you to reach your mouth better. He’s grasping your jaw and neck and the back of your head with a lot of intensity– you feel wildly dizzy when he pulls away.

“Uh.” Peter B. Parker is standing in front of you both, mouth wide open, and you look back at Hobie and he grins rather coolly, not really giving a damn. It’s enough to make you snort. “Wait, who are you?”

“Oh. Spider-Woman from Earth 257.” You remember Peter has never seen your face, either. “Jessica Drew?”

“Right, right.” Peter raises his hands in a whoop-de-doo motion, like he should’ve known that. “Nice to know what you look like behind the mask. Not nice to know that you’ve been avoiding your babysitting duties. Why are you two fooling around like prepubescent children? What happened to responsibility?”

“Ahhhhh, please, Peter. Live a little.” Hobie stands up, his full length of height drawing him to about the same height as Peter if not an inch taller. He picks up Mayday and hands her off to him. “Let’s not act as if you and MJ weren’t shacking up in the sleeping pods last week, yeah? Does Miguel need to know about how irresponsible you were?”

You think he’s kidding, but Peter pales and you clap your hands over your mouth, trying not to laugh. Miguel would absolutely throw a fit if he found that out.

“Uh…” Peter swallows. “At least that’s not an interdimensional tragedy-in-the-making like you two.”

“There’s no rules against that, I don’t think.” Hobie shrugs. “And if there are, fuck them. Miguel doesn’t know it all.”

“He really is punk to the very end.” Peter groans and leaves out to the hallway with Mayday. 

Hobie flashes a smile at you as he sits back down, ruffling your hair.

[batboyblog]

How concerned do you think we should be about people who may not want to vote for a Harris-Shapiro ticket? Personally I think he’d be a great choice for VP, but I am worried about people who would smear him because of Gaza. I’ve read up on how his own views on it have changed and how he supports a two-state solution like pretty much any other Democrat and how he is against Netanyahu, but you just know how misinformation that appeals to people’s biases can stick.

well first off I don't think we should worry till we have a VP pick (statements that will be dated very soon) we don't know who Vice President Harris will pick, it might be Governor Shapiro, it might be Pete Buttigieg, Mark Kelly, Tim Walz, or Andy Beshear, and I think they're all great, all good picks, all worthwhile.

On Josh Shapiro himself, I've seen an alarming amount of, disinformation, lies, misinformation, and twisting about him, indeed over the weekend one of the most aggressive attempts to ratfuck a person in such a short period of time I've ever seen. I can't say for sure where it came from but it was an impressive weekend for misinformation, with a trans panic about a cisgender boxer in the Olympics and anti-immigrant race riots in the UK targeting muslims about an attack carried out by a British born teen. Both cases as it turns out go back to Russian misinformation (Boxer, Race Riot) Just something to keep in mind as we watch fake and misleading stories about Democratic elected officials pop up.

Any ways on Shapiro himself, He has a very progressive record, his views on Israel are the same as everyone else on the short list, and indeed Kamala Harris views too. In some ways as a Jewish politician he's felt more comfortable criticizing Israel and Netanyahu than Goyish politicians, there's a good article about this:

if someone is willing to vote for Harris with any other VP, but not Shapiro, even though he has the same views on Israel as the rest, and indeed none of them have called Netanyahu "one of the worst leaders of all time", well they just have a problem with a Jewish VP.

I'm not overly worried about it TBH, antisemitism is a huge turn off to normal voters, but its up to everyone normal to dismiss it and keep trucking.

I don't know who Kamala Harris will pick, but if its Josh Shapiro, I'll be thinking about this news story from 1986 every time he comes up:

Before he was 13 years old Josh Shapiro formed a national organization to fight to free a friend he'd never met before in person from an evil empire, and they did.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Traditionally, the image of a figleaf was used by artists to cover the body parts (think Adam and Eve) that they were not supposed to show in their paintings. As I use the term, a figleaf is a communicative device that provides just a bit of cover for something that one isn’t supposed to show in public – like racism. To see how this works, let’s first take a closer look at Trump’s call for a Muslim ban. Here is a statement, cast in the third person, that he read aloud in December 2015: Donald J Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. The anti-Muslim message is loud and clear, and not hidden at all. But the end of the statement is the bit that I want to focus on: ‘until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on’. For some people, this phrase provided reassurance that Trump isn’t racist – because a real racist would want to ban Muslims period, not just while we figure out what’s going on. This is a figleaf: it provides just enough cover for the racism that isn’t acceptable to show in public. One reason that figleaves like this work is that many white people accept what the sociolinguist Jane Hill called ‘the folk theory of racism’. This view sets a very high bar for what counts as racist: a racist has to consciously believe in the biological inferiority of people of colour, and intend to be racist. Somebody like this would want to ban Muslims forever, not just temporarily. Similarly, they wouldn’t suggest that ‘some’ Mexican immigrants are good people, as Trump did. Nor would they have a Black friend, or declare themself to be non-racist, this line of thinking goes. A view such as this one makes it very easy for utterances to serve as figleaves for racism. These figleaves allow a voter to continue supporting a candidate who has made a comment that might have worried them. They don’t need to become fully convinced that the candidate is non-racist; it’s enough in many cases to be uncertain about whether the utterance indicates racism. When I examined discussions among Trump supporters online, I found people who worried about Trump’s views on Mexicans being reassured by those who pointed out that he also said some of them are good. ‘I didn’t hear him say anything racist against any race,’ one person posted. ‘What I did hear him say is, “Illegal Mexicans bring drugs, crime, and are rapists, but I’m sure some are good people.” Seriously, whats racist about that?’ Another Tweeted: ‘Trump is not racist … Trump is not against all mexicans just the illegals.’ Another classic form of figleaf involves reporting the words of others, either specifically (‘John Smith says…’) or in a vague, handwavy way (‘Lots of people are saying…’) This is a great way to avoid responsibility for what one is inserting into the discourse. We see this technique in the British politician Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech in 1968, in which he described a constituent (a ‘quite ordinary working man’) as saying: ‘In this country in 15 or 20 years’ time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.’ Reports like these help to normalise the sentiments expressed, while distancing the speaker from them. Figleaves are not for everyone. Some people don’t need them: fully committed racists are happy with blatantly racist comments, no figleaves required. Many people won’t be convinced by them: antiracist activists, for example, will see right through the attempted reassurance. For others, though, they provide just what is needed – a licence to go on supporting the person they feel drawn to.

[girlactionfigure]

remember7.10

Yariv Mozer, the director of We Will Dance Again, a documentary film about the #Nova festival, said that he had to agree with the #BBC to not describe H@mas as a terrorist organization if he wanted it to air, according to an interview with The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday. The film, which is set to broadcast on the BBC on Thursday, contains unseen footage of the H@mas massacre at the festival on October 7. It was commissioned by BBC Storyville. “It was a price I was willing to pay so that the British public will be able to see these atrocities and decide if this is a terrorist organization or not,” Mozer said. This comes amid claims of anti-Israel bias in the BBC since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, including a scandal caused last week by British Lawyer Trevor Asserson’s report that the BBC breached its own editorial guidelines for news coverage more than 1,500 times since the beginning of the war. Additionally, the BBC refuses to call H@mas a terrorist organization. The BBC calls H@mas a proscribed terrorist organisation, but has been reluctant to go further for fear it could be seen to be taking sides in the conflict. In a statement after meeting the Board of Deputies of British Jews in October the BBC said it “does not  … use the word terrorist without attributing it, nor do we ban words”.

[esyra]

These days, I have long debated what to write regarding Palestine-Israel, and questioned why I should write anything at all. The idea that celebrities and the loudest chronically online people you've ever met, blessed in their ignorance and indifferent to livehoods different than theirs, feel the need to opinate on social and geopolitical issues is absolutely insane. Most of the time, they do more harm than good—spreading misinformation like wildfire. Such opinions are what convinced me to ultimately talk about it.

Rest assured I'm not particularly qualified to talk about any of this, then again no one seems (or tries) to be. This is not a statement, simply questions about selected nuance. Full disclosure: I am of Palestinian descent. And I tried my hardest to be all-encompassing and empathetic; if I fail at any moment, my sincerest apologies.

All around social media I've seen only two kinds of posts regarding Palestine and Israel; they're either completely favorable to Israel and dehumanize Palestine or they treat Palestines as a footnote, in which it's made to assure its author doesn't endorse murder but also to point out that Palestine "deserve what's coming." There's a certain nuance required to support Palestine that's not asked when supporting Israel.

I've seen Jamie Lee Curtis reposting a picture of Palestinian children watching Israelis air strikes as if they were of Israeli children. There's no doubt it was a malicious-intended post considering she credited the photographer while deleting the original caption which explicitly explained who the ones pictured were. After being severely corrected in the comments, she simply deleted and made no mention of it. Guess children don't matter if they're Palestinian. I've seen way too many celebrities responding to the conflict with worries about how they might be affected by it, as self-centered and selfish as you can imagine.

I've seen a journalist claim that 40 Israeli babies were beheaded and multiple newspapers (many of them British, because what else can you expect from them?) and public figures reposting as a fact, only for the same journalist to later claim she actually "never said that" (she absolutely did). Also the IDF explaining they have no information confirming the allegations that 'Hamas beheaded babies'. I've seen people using statements from Sabra and Shatila massacre survivors and trying to rewrite Palestine, which were the victims of said crime, as the perpetrators. I've seen people using videos of Russian attacks as Palestinian ones. I've seen a British journalist fabricating a harmful statement from a Palestinian Ambassador to help dehumanize Palestine, and being proud of such. I've seen BBC using the nuances of language to their liking, reporting how Israelis were 'killed' while Palestinians 'died'. Always heard journalists avoid adjectives in favor of being unbiased. Again, guess that's unimportant when it comes to Palestine. Most of all, I've seen people equate supporting Palestine to anti-semitism.

If that belief steams that Palestine and Hamas are one-and-the-same, and the latter is a anti-semitism organization, then that's another concern I'd like to add the recently appraised 'nuance'.

Hamas first appeared during the first intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. The signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 marked the end of the uprising—an agreement between Israel and Palestine meant to lay the groundwork for the formation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Instead, it has erased Palestine's recognition as a State. In its history, Hamas have equate the liberation of Palestinians with the destruction of Israel, likely the reason they're a highly divisive organization that has often been at oddens with more mainstream Palestinian politicians. However, Hamas backtracked on its aims in a 2017 proclamation, making it clear that what it wants is to end a “racist, anti-human and colonial Zionist project.” In its 16th topic, they state "Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine."

The description of the Israeli occupation as fascist most likely comes from the similarities of Palestine to an "open air prison". They have no control of their own borders (IDF controls who and what enters or leaves) and are deemed stateless. "In defiance of international law, Israel considers all Palestinians inhabitants of the occupied Palestinian territory as non-citizens and foreign residents." Meaning if they leave their territory, they won't be allowed back in. Their rights in the Arab World are uncertain, particularly in Lebanon and Egypt where they are denied rights to secure residency, employment, property, communal interaction and family unification. Procedures to allow non-residents to apply for naturalisation in Lebanon, Egypt and Saudi Arabia do not apply to stateless Palestinians. So while those asking for Palestinians to be evacuated for their safety certainly have noble intentions, I ask of you: where they will go? Can you imagine walking away from home knowing you're heading into nothing? What's the difference between living in the rumbles of their homes and being homeless in another country?

The ones who decide to stay (and the ones unable to leave) are likely not making it for much longer. According to the United Nations, roughly 6,400 Palestinians and 300 Israelis have been killed in the ongoing conflict since 2008, not counting the recent fatalities. Is it truly a war if one side is so overpowering in its resources and retaliations? I feel the need to point out these stats to question why the notion that "violence is never the answer" is only used now. When it has been the only response until now.

Then again, Hamas remains a polarizing force in Palestinian society. They're an organization that's slaughtering families and less than a third of Palestinians think the group deserves to represent them. There has not been an opportunity, however, for elections to change their representatives. Palestinians living in Gaza must endure an unstable political reality with an unrepresentative government implementing repressive policies against LGBTQ people and abusive policies against detainees. Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu purposefully propped up Hamas and there has been speculation that Iran has supported them. I've seen many post as if it's a fact, so I'd like to reinforce that it's speculation. In essence, Hamas is a terrorist group with questionable history and even more questionable allies. None of which has the Palestine's best interests at heart.

This has been overly long, and I still haven't touched on all topics I wished to address. Some I probably couldn't express properly since it's such a complex geopolitical issue. Then again, no one seems to try while all seem very comfortable in being as biased as they wish to be. So I thought I add my compassionate two cents in favor of Palestine and all the years of oppresion they've endured. I still hope you'll read this to the end, and extended to Palestine the same sympathetic hand you've rightfully extended to Israeli citizens.

My heart aches for the innocent people murdered, Palestinian and Israeli. Settlers aren’t innocent, but people who were born there didn't really choose to be one. Jewish people following matters of faith don't deserve to die. No one has (or should have) the right to take someone's life away. People at the Gaza Strip that are either just trying to survive or attempting to protect their homes also don't deserve to die, as flawed as their logic and actions might be, and many are missing that nuance. The denial of food, water, and medical aid, violates the Geneva convention. And it's a kind of retaliation that Palestine in its entirety will never be able to match.

Currently, the Israeli government is preparing a ground invasion of Gaza. An anonymous Israeli official said they would turn Gaza into “a city of tents.” A parliamentarian said that Israel should not concern itself with the safety of any Gazans who “chose” to stay in the Gaza Strip, as if every crossing hasn't been blocked.

Soon, the 'war' will end. And when it does, I can assure you Palestine won't be the last one standing. They've never had a real chance. I'd like to remember everyone that, despite Netanyahu's claims that they are "human animals", Palestinians are human beings. People. All of which deserve to live, deserve compassion and deserve protection. They also deserve to be remembered.

[hedgehog-moss]

In other news, this week a French publisher on his way to the London Book Fair was arrested by British counter-terrorist police to be questioned about his participation in protests in France.

A French publisher has been arrested on terror charges in London after being questioned by UK police about participating in anti-government protests in France.

Moret arrived at St Pancras [...] with his colleague Stella Magliani-Belkacem, the editorial director at the Paris-based publishing house, to be confronted by the two officers. [...] He was questioned for six hours and then arrested for alleged obstruction in refusing to disclose the passcodes to his phone and computer. [...] He was transferred to a police station in Islington, north London, where he remained in custody on Tuesday. He was later released on bail.

Éditions la Fabrique is known for publishing radical left authors. Moret also represents the French science fiction novelist Alain Damasio and had arranged more than 40 appointments at the London book fair. [...]

[Quoting publishing house’s press release] “The police officers claimed that Ernest had participated in demonstrations in France as a justification for this act – a quite remarkably inappropriate statement for a British police officer to make, and which seems to clearly indicate complicity between French and British authorities on this matter.” [...] “There’s been an increasingly repressive approach by the French government to the demonstrations, both in terms of police violence, but also in terms of a security clampdown.”

(Guardian link - BBC link) (article in French)

The publishing house (here’s their latest statement in French) and the publisher’s lawyer mention that the British police asked him “Do you support Emmanuel Macron? Did you attend protests against the pension reform?” and he was also asked to name the authors with anti-government views that his employer has published. They add, “Asking the representative of a publishing house, in the framework of counter-terrorism, about the opinions of his authors, is pushing even further the logic of political censorship and repression of dissenting thought. In a context of social protests and authoritarian escalation on the part of the French government, this aspect [of the questioning] is chilling.”

Being an accomplice to thoughtcrime by publishing dissident authors gets you treated like an international terrorist now... The publisher’s lawyer suggests that French authorities asked the UK to help them get their hands on the publisher’s contacts in the radical left sphere. But on the face of it, we’ve got: Exercise your right to protest your government in France -> get arrested by counter-terrorist UK police in London. That’s literally the reason he was given for being greeted by police at the train station...

[canmom]

Do you think Hideaki Anno is right-wing or is it too difficult to tell from his works?

Haha that's a question.

I'll focus on nationalism rather than trying to get into, say, gender politics here, since that's the accusation that most seems to follow Anno around.

Anno's politics are... hard to pin down from his work alone, I think. He's like... a prototypical case of that generation of 'apolitical' otaku that followed after the Anpo generation, with Eva pretty much the definitive statement of the 90s psychological turn. But that said... I can definitely see the argument that there are nationalist themes in some of his works like Gunbuster, though I definitely don't buy every reading in this series (lots of dubious kanji reading). He definitely has that otaku fascination with war machinery and war media (apparently he's a big fan of The Battle for Okinawa and watched it over 100 times), which can easily blend into imperialist ideology.

But there's complications here. For example, the Animekritik series cites the setting of Gunbuster in Okinawa as something formative to the nationalist ideology they are trying to illustrate - in part in relation to the ongoing controversy over American military bases in Okinawa. Anno has at least been on record as saying he's disinterested in Western culture, and I can see the reading of Jung-Freud as an external Other who is shown up by the Japanese girls, somehow simultaneously representing the USSR, Europe and the States. But anti-Americanism in Japan can come in both left and right wing flavours (c.f. Anpo). Communists want the Americans out too! Portraying Okinawa as a military training camp in a Japan-led military coalition certainly comes across as a more nationalist take on that whole matter, but I feel like it's got about the same level of serious nationalist commitment as Doctor Who putting random British people all over space.

When Gainax has played around with nationalist imagery it's usually been in a kind of ironic sendup way - see Ash's writeup about the Aikoku Sentai Dai Nippon controversy, in which Daicon Film staff were disdainful at the accusation that their goofy toku film reflected a genuine nationalist sentiment. While Imaishi takes it further, a lot of Anno's work is also about playfully reappropriating past works. In Anno's case a lot of that is classic tokusatsu, Ultraman in particular, and also Leiji Matsumoto's scifi, notably Space Battleship Yamato, which, well... you know the deal there lol. But it's not so simple to go from that to 'Anno is a nationalist'.

Eva doesn't tend to attract these accusations, but I recall the controversy came back around with Shin Godzilla, though to my mind it's hard to find a straightforwardly nationalist reading of that movie. (It's a film about the experience of the earthquake and Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown, and it's critical of Japan's bureaucracy, but equally one where the JSDF repeatedly get their shit handed to them and civilian infrastructure is what actually stops Godzilla - not to mention Godzilla is painted as quite a tragic figure here!) It all feels pretty tenuous.

I haven't seen as many of Anno's live action films as I'd like, so I can't comment as much on the more recent Shin films, Love & Pop, Shiki-Jitsu etc. And it's always possible for subtler allusions to slip by the anglophone viewer. Still, I don't personally think Anno's post-Gunbuster work is particularly nationalist in outlook. I certainly haven't seen any evidence of him favouring, say, war crime denial, anti-Korean sentiment, remilitarisation, etc etc. - he's definitely not as dubious a figure as someone like Hajime Isayama. But it's not like, anti-nationalist either! It's just kind of hard to read in those terms.

So I lean towards your second option, I'm not convinced he's a nationalist or particularly right wing. He happily associates with Hayao Miyazaki, who's definitely not a right wing guy. But Anno'll also let hilariously cooked stuff like whatever On A Gloomy Night was supposed to be into the Animator Expo. So I don't think he's particularly left wing either, he's no Ikuni! But Anno's fiction is very individual focused, full of psychoanalytic themes and internal conflict. He can vividly portray trauma and complex power dynamics. There's a lot to appreciate in works like Eva from a left-wing angle. I don't really know why this association of nationalism follows him around.

Idk, maybe there's a bunch of interviews I'm missing! Presumably you have a reason for asking this question...

[mariacallous]

Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists fired two anti-ship ballistic missiles at a Greek-flagged ship headed to Yemen to deliver grain on Monday, causing minor damage, according to U.S. Central Command.

Despite the minor damage on the U.S.-owned M/V Sea Champion, the ship continued on course to Aden in Yemen, where it ultimately delivered the grain for the benefit of the Yemeni people.

Central Command said the M/V Sea Champion has delivered humanitarian aid to the country 11 times over the past five years.

"Houthi aggression in the region has exacerbated already high levels of need in conflict-impacted Yemen, which remains one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world, with nearly 80 percent of the entire population needing humanitarian assistance," Central Command said. "We are committed to countering the Houthis’ malign activities, which directly endanger the imports of foodstuff and humanitarian aid to Yemen."

Another ship in the Gulf of Aden, the British-registered, Lebanese-operated Rubymar, sustained damage on Sunday after "an explosion in close proximity to the vessel."

The explosion was reportedly caused by two missiles fired at the ship by Houthi rebels and resulted in the ship taking on water.

The crew was able to evacuate the vessel safely.

Houthi Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree later issued a statement claiming the rebel group’s responsibility for the attack, saying the vessel was "now at risk of potentially sinking." 

"The ship suffered catastrophic damages and came to a complete halt," Saree said. 

The Houthis also claimed to have downed an American drone Monday in the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah, according to Reuters. U.S. Central Command, which operates in the region, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

The Houthis last November took out a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone near the Yemeni coast. 

The reported attacks come after the U.S. launched five "self-defense" airstrikes against a series of Houthi rebel positions in Yemen on Saturday. 

The strikes targeted three anti-ship missile batteries, one unmanned underwater vessel (UUV) and another unmanned surface vessel (USV), U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced Sunday. 

"This is the first observed Houthi employment of a UUV since attacks began on Oct. 23," CENTCOM said in a statement. 

[matan4il]

lowkey not even as invested in 911 lonestar but ronen has been getting so much hate i feel so defensive about the show like. oof, there's gonna be too much chaos when the season airs

Hi Nonnie!

Honestly, IDEK when the new season airs, or whether real life will allow me to watch it, but all of my solidarity and support goes out to Ronen. Jews do not deserve this kind of abuse and de-humanization for caring about their people and their homeland, especially when it's someone who actually was born and grew up in Israel, and still has friends there (he even mentioned a personal connection to unfathomably young kids who had been butchered by Hamas).

This wouldn't be done to someone of any other nationality. For example, no matter what the US or UK or Iran has done that people might strongly disagree with, including in recent years, I've never seen individual American or British or Iranian actors held responsible for their government's actions, and expected not to care about the American or British or Iranian people when they are suffering. Because that would be de-humanizing. It would be acting like these American or British or Iranian (or any other nationality, really) actors are political billboards first, and humans second.

It's de-humanizing to expect Ronen not to care about the well being of Israelis and Jews, about their safety after the massacre that was committed against them on Oct 7, and which Hamas leaders promised to repeat whenever possible, about those who are still held hostage in Gaza (whether it's their bodies being denied of having a proper burial and their families of closure, or whether they're alive and continuously abused by people who we know raped, mutilated and tortured even children just because they were Jews), about the rocket attacks on Israel from several fronts (do people realize what it feels like to see the photos of Israeli Jewish kids taking cover from rocket attacks on the ground, with their little hands held over their heads, of all days on Yom Ha'Shoah, our national Holocaust Memorial Day? How do people expect us not to care about that?) which have continued uninterrupted since Oct 7, about the on going psychological and emotional trauma people have and are suffering here, about the repeated personal (because yeah, anti-Jewish terrorism and violence in Israel was not born on Oct 7, and many of us carry scars from previous attacks) and intergenerational trauma (because most of us grew up with the knowledge of what antisemitic violence, including in Arab and Muslim countries, has done to our families) that all of this evokes...

And going, "But so many more have died on the other side!" is de-humanizing as well. It's as if you had your mother murdered, and when you wanted to express your grief and loss, you'd be told that you should care about your neighbor's pain more, because he lost five cousins, not just one mom, and five is more than one. As if this is exactly how human pain works, by numbers... (not to mention, this notion ignores that at least two of the cousins are actually responsible for the murder of your mom in the first place, and they're also responsible for causing the deaths of their other cousins)

IDK, it's just... not normal that Jewish pain and Jewish solidarity are being demonized like this. And it is about demonizing these specific expressions of Jewish bond, because even Jews who have expressed compassion for both sides have been vilified (Ronen even included innocent Palestinians suffering in his initial IG statement, made on Oct 9 and linked above and there's a screenshot below, then he shared an extra statement that was even more about innocents on both sides suffering, and he was still crucified like he's some sort of a heartless monster).

It is NOT okay if the only Jews acceptable to you, are the ones who do not express Jewish pain and solidarity.

I hope people who may see my ask reply are capable of... IDK. Even if in the past they attacked Ronen or other Jews for expressing any kind of compassion for fellow Israeli Jews, I hope these people can really take in how de-humanizing that is, and what sort of a message it sends to Jews out there, re-consider whether that's a path they want to take again, or support when others take it, and do better than they have before. It's never too late to learn and fix things.

De-popularize the de-humanization of Jews!

Because that's the freaking decent thing to do.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[probablyasocialecologist]

GCs claim to campaign for the “safety” of women and children. I’ve long suspected this was confined to the “right kind” of women and children. Kathleen Stock, a former trustee of the “LGB Alliance” (public statements of which include “adding the + to LGB gives the green light to paraphilias like bestiality…”) appeared (to me) to suggest that it would be “more honest” for high-profile trans allies to publicly “declare” if they have trans children. Her post made no mention of obtaining the children’s consent. It seems reasonable to interpret this as a call for the public outing of certain trans children. Given “out” trans children have been murdered and 64% are subjected to bullying, it strikes me as, at the very least, callous. Joey Barton, one of the movement’s most high profile (and oft platformed) voices, will shortly stand trial accused of assaulting his wife. Donald Trump, who was found by a jury to have sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll, has increasingly made attacks on trans people a campaign talking point. The GC movement has claimed a degree of legitimacy based on previous legal successes, notably the case of Forstater v CGD Europe, in which GC beliefs were declared “worthy of respect in a democratic society”. Some seem to have interpreted this as a licence to persecute trans people. This summer three separate courts gave clear statements to the contrary. The Employment Tribunal upheld the sacking of teacher Kevin Lister after he equated being transgender (as one of his students was) with having a mental illness. The High Court upheld an order banning Joshua Sutcliffe from teaching children after he repeatedly misgendered a child in his care. In Australia, the Federal Court prohibited a dating app from discriminating against trans women. The message from the courts is clear: GC beliefs are worthy of respect, but GCs must also respect trans people. The summer of court losses also undermines the movement’s claims to expertise. High profile GC activists often hold themselves out as experts. The courts made clear that many are no such thing. Maya Forstater gave “expert” evidence in the Sutcliffe case. The judge was “not persuaded that she is properly described as an expert”, noting: “Ms Forstater explained that the use of non-preferred pronouns in this case might be due to cognitive dissonance. Mr Phillips was not, however, able to identify any medical expertise that she might have to opine on that issue.” Helen Joyce, Director of Advocacy at the GC group “Sex Matters”, purported to give “expert” evidence in the Australian case. The judge said she: “…does not have any formal education or qualifications even in biology, let alone in gender, sex or law… she is not an expert at all. She has no recognised expertise in any of the areas in which she expresses an opinion.” In April the Cass Report gave a veneer of scientific legitimacy to the GC movement’s various claims. Both Labour and the Conservatives used the report as justification to prevent trans children from accessing puberty blockers (which, contrary to popular myth, do not prevent puberty but, rather, delay its onset). Cis children are still given access. The report was swiftly rejected by medical bodies around the world. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society said, in a joint statement, “Medical evidence, not politics, should inform treatment decisions”. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists followed suit. The British Medical Association called Cass’ claims “unsubstantiated”. I’d argue the report was largely debunked by a Yale School of Medicine review.

15 September 2024

[girlactionfigure]

the British

SEPTEMBER 18, 2024

For many years, there has been a concerted effort to delegitimize the State of Israel as a British colonial project. These people decontextualize one single paragraph-long, non-binding statement -- the 1917 Balfour Declaration -- and ignore everything that happened before and since. 

The fact of the matter is that by the time the British actually occupied the territory that now encompasses the State of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, they actively worked with the Arabs against the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state. 

Anyone familiar with the complicated history of the conflict beyond the same tired propaganda talking points knows this. Our own grandparents know this, because it was they who suffered under British curfews, detention camps, unfair laws, and more.

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION: IN CONTEXT

In 1897, at the First Zionist Congress, the Zionist movement decided that “Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Eretz ­Israel [the Land of Israel] secured under public law.” In other words, the Zionist movement sought to accomplish its goals through legal means, rather than through violence. To do this, the Zionists tried lobbying a number of world powers, most significantly, the Ottomans, who then ruled over what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories. They were unsuccessful. In fact, the Ottoman Empire tightened its anti-Jewish restrictions in the Land of Israel in response.

Meanwhile, as the Ottoman Empire weakened, a number of Indigenous religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East, as well as the Arabs, began vying for their own independence. This was especially true during World War I, after it was revealed that the British and the French had conspired to take over the spoils of the vast Ottoman Empire once the Ottomans were defeated. Other groups that made public -- though ultimately unsuccessful -- bids for sovereignty included the Assyrians and the Kurds. In other words, given the context of the period and the region, Zionism was not an anomaly, but rather, it fell in line with what other national groups were doing at the time.

In 1916, the British promised the Arabs a unified Arab state in Greater Syria, which included what is now Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Jordan, and parts of Turkey. A year later, in 1917, the British signed the Balfour Declaration, supporting the establishment of a “Jewish national home,” which, in the eyes of the Arabs, contradicted the promise the British had made just the previous year.

“His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

WHAT WAS THE BALFOUR DECLARATION?

The Balfour Declaration was a statement issued in 1917 by the British government supporting the establishment of “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. 

There are two important things to keep in mind: (1) in 1917, Palestine was not yet under British rule; thus, the British had no actual power to assign it to anyone, and (2) by the time the British were given administrative powers over Palestine, they’d already changed their tune in favor of the Arab aspirations. It’s also important to note that the Balfour Declaration never specified the exact nature of this “national home for the Jewish people,”and, as such, the British felt that this promise did not actually contradict the earlier promise they had made to the Arabs in 1916 regarding a unified Arab state in Greater Syria. 

The causes for the Balfour Declaration are subject to speculation. Some historians believe the British wanted to reward Chaim Weizmann, one of the most active proponents for a Jewish state, for producing acetone, which was critical to the British war effort during World War I. Others believe the British were desperate for the Americans to enter World War I, and because they held the antisemitic view that Jews had a great deal of power over the American government, they thought that in rewarding the Jews, the Jews would reward them. Others claim Lord Balfour was a Christian Zionist -- not to be confused with a Christian who is a Zionist -- and he felt that the returning of the Jews to the Land of Israel would hasten the Second Coming of Jesus. Finally, others think the British “embraced” Zionism because they felt that it would justify their colonization of Palestine over the French colonization of Palestine, as the French were also vying for control of that strip of land.

BRITISH RESPONSE TO ARAB VIOLENCE

British rule over Palestine was characterized by appeasement to -- and oftentimes outright support for -- the Arabs, even when the Arabs carried out antisemitic massacres against the Jews. After the 1920 Nebi Musa pogrom in Jerusalem, for example, the Jews accused the British of complicity, as they had actively prevented the Jews in the Old City from getting help. In fact, it was this riot that led to the formation of the Haganah, the first Zionist paramilitary in Mandatory Palestine, as the Zionist movement realized that the British could not -- or were not willing to -- protect the Jewish population of Palestine.

In 1936, the Arab Higher Committee, the Arab leadership in Mandatory Palestine, called for a general strike and boycott of Jewish products. This quickly escalated into violence and terrorism, leading to the massacre of some 500 Jews and hundreds of British. Due to their inadequacy in protecting the Jewish population, once again, the British reluctantly agreed to arm the Haganah.

In 1937, the British issued the Peel Commission to investigate the causes of unrest in Palestine. The investigators decided that partitioning the land into one Jewish state and one Arab state was the best option -- putting partition on the table for the first time. The Jews agreed to the plan reluctantly -- the terms weren’t great, though Chaim Weizmann said the Zionist movement was prepared to accept a state “even if it’s the size of a tablecloth” -- but the Arabs rejected it vehemently. Wishing to appease the Arabs, the British immediately discarded the 1937 Peel Plan and instead rewarded the Arab perpetrators of the violence with the 1939 White Paper.

THE 1939 WHITE PAPER

Given the results of the 1937 Peel Commission, which found that it was the Arab leadership that had instigated the violence of the Arab Revolt (against Jewish immigration), the Jews in Palestine were absolutely dismayed when the British issued the 1939 White Paper.

The White Paper, in direct contradiction with the findings of the Peel Commission, called for the establishment of a singular Palestinian Arab state. The Jews felt that, in light of previous promises, hundreds of years of Arab subjugation of Jews, and Arab violence against the Jews in Palestine, a single, Arab-majority state would shatter any illusion of Jewish self-determination. 

Most damningly, the White Paper also almost entirely banned Jewish immigration, while Arab immigration continued to flow freely and without restriction into Palestine. The White Paper limited Jewish immigration to up to 75,000 people within a period of 5 years, and any further immigration would be subject to the approval of the Arabs. Keep in mind that this was on the brink of World War II, when millions of Jews were desperate to escape Europe.

Jews were also banned from purchasing any lands owned by Arabs, save for 5% of the Mandate territory. 

The Jewish Agency for Palestine issued a statement saying that the British were denying the Jews their rights in the “darkest hour of Jewish history.”

ALIYAH BET

Aliyah Bet is the code name for the wave of Jewish illegal immigration and illegal rescue missions to Mandatory Palestine between 1920-1948, and particularly after 1939, after the British passed the 1939 White Paper. Aliyah Bet happened in two phases: phase one (1934-1942/1944) and phase two (1945-1948).

The rescue missions were carried out by a network of Zionist organizations. Some 62 missions were carried out between 1937-1944, the majority of them unsuccessful and often ending with catastrophic results. 

Some 70,000 Jews, aboard 62 or 66 vessels (sources differ), attempted to reach Palestine via ship during World War II. Only ~15,000 made it safely, as most were unable to penetrate the British blockade. Five ships sunk, resulting in nearly 1,600 casualties.

After the war, the Haganah continued its illicit operations, now smuggling Holocaust survivors out of Europe. Overall, some 70,000 Jews arrived to Palestine in over 100 ships throughout the course of Aliyah Bet. This was a modest number considering the high number of Jews that attempted to travel to Palestine unsuccessfully. 

Aliyah Bet created a conundrum for the British. On the one hand, they were trying to appease the Arab Higher Committee, which decried Jewish immigration. On the other hand, the world saw the British as cruel, keeping Holocaust survivors trapped in detention camps and banning them from Palestine.

Had the British supported the Zionist movement, there would have been no need for Aliyah Bet, nor would 1600 Holocaust refugees have died at sea en route to Palestine.

DETENTION CAMPS IN CYPRUS

The 1939 British White Paper remained in effect until 1948, with the establishment of the State of Israel. After the end of the Holocaust, Aliyah Bet continued in full force. Most of the would-be immigrants -- Holocaust survivors -- were detained by the British and placed in prison and internment camps. The largest of the camps were located in Cyprus, which was a British colony at the time.

Between 1946 and 1949, some 53,510 Jews were held prisoner in these camps. The majority had arrived from the Balkans and Eastern Europe, though a small number of Moroccan Jews were imprisoned as well. 80% of the prisoners were between the ages of 13-35, and 6,000 of them were orphans. Some 2,000 Jewish children were born in the camps. After Israel’s independence, Israel evacuated the last 10,200 prisoners into Israel.

The conditions at the camps were atrocious and inhumane.Jews had to face obstacles such as poor sanitation, overcrowding, lack of privacy, and a shortage of drinkable water. The American Joint Distribution Committee, which provided medical aid, extra food rations, and more, stated that the British treated Jewish refugees in Cyprus worse than they treated Nazi prisoners of war in adjacent camps. 

Tents and barracks were overcrowded. There was a severe clothing and shoe shortage. The food was bad quality. Undoubtedly the biggest issue was lack of water, particularly during the summer, which resulted in poor sanitary conditions and the spread of disease. The British officers responsible for the refugees were unwilling and indifferent. The barbed wire and watchtowers reminded the Jewish refugees of their time in Nazi concentration camps, which was retraumatizing. Additionally, the camps had been built by Nazi POWs, which understandably upset the Jewish detainees.

Some 400 Jews died in the internment camps in Cyprus.

Jewish children in a British detainment camp in Cyprus after the Holocaust. Some 400 Jews died in these camps, due to lack of sanitation, malnutrition, subpar medical care, ill-treatment, and other poor conditions.

ATLIT

Atlit was a British concentration camp near Haifa used to hold Arabs and Jews under administrative detention (i.e. without a trial) during the period of the British Mandate. It was built in the 1930s and was primarily used to imprison Jewish refugees who arrived in Palestine. Some 10,000 Jewish refugees were held there. 

Men and women were separated upon arrival and sent to showers to be deloused with dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. Since many of the prisoners were Nazi concentration camp survivors, the showers were especially frightening and traumatic. Barbed wire formed a barrier between the men and women in the camp and the perimeter was surrounded by watchtowers eerily reminiscent of the Nazi camps. Children were separated from their parents. 

A nurse at Atlit described the conditions in 1947: “"...when the Jewish Agency asked me to come here, I felt maybe at last I could do something for the survivors. Then I saw the things that you're seeing now. The results of the Nazi dehumanization. People with no belief in the future, apathetic, quarrelsome, no morals...”

JEWISH INSURGENCY AGAINST THE BRITISH

Had the British been “on the side of the Zionists,” then there would have been no need for the Zionists to launch an insurgency against the British.

Zionist non-violent and violent (including terrorism) resistance to the British began after the 1939 White Paper. It was temporarily put on hold with the outbreak of the Holocaust, when the head of the Jewish Agency and future first prime minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion, announced, “We must assist the British in the war as if there were no White Paper and we must resist the White Paper as if there were no war.”

Towards the end of the Holocaust, however, the Irgun resumed its anti-British operations, when its leader and future prime minister Menachem Begin announced in February of 1944: “There can no longer be an armistice between the Jewish Nation and its youth and a British administration in the Land of Israel which has been delivering our brethren to Hitler…Our nation is at war with this regime and it is a fight to the finish.” 

The Haganah, which was under the jurisdiction of the officially recognized Jewish leadership in Palestine, remained mostly cooperative with the British, while putting pressure on them to open up Jewish refugee restrictions.

 Perhaps most infamous of all Irgun operations was the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946, where the British held administrative quarters. Begin had warned the British of the bombing in advance, giving them ample time to evacuate their staff and hotel guests, but they didn’t listen. In the end, 91 people were killed in the bombing.

Following the bombing, the Irgun and Lehi continued attacking British police and military targets. In retaliation, the British imposed a number of restrictions on the Jewish population of Palestine,such as martial law, military curfews, random searches, and mass arrests. Tensions grew between the Haganah — which condemned the bombings — and the Irgun and Lehi.

BRITISH ANTISEMITISM

The unrest in Palestine reignited widespread British antisemitic sentiment, both within the Mandate and in Great Britain. 

For example, after the Irgun kidnapped and hung two British sergeants, British soldiers went on a rampage in Tel Aviv, indiscriminately attacking the Jewish community and killing five Jews. In Great Britain, the outraged population rioted against the Jewish community, a riot which devolved into a pogrom, with many carrying signs with messages such as “Hitler was right.”

Jews were consistently put under curfews and subjected to ill-treatment.

Winston Churchill himself wrote that the British soldiers in Palestine were strongly pro-Arab. The Jewish Agency issued frequent complaints that the soldiers made antisemitic remarks, such as “bloody Jew,” “pigs,” or even vowing to finish the job that Hitler had started. 

It was the British officers in Palestine that first engaged in Holocaust inversion; that is, the depiction of Jews as Nazis. In March of 1945 — about two months before the Nazis even surrendered — the High Commissioner of Palestine, Lord Gort, told the Colonial Secretary in London that “the establishment of any Jewish State in Palestine…will almost inevitably mean the rebirth of National Socialism [i.e. Nazism] in some guise.”

Sir John Bagot Glubb, who later became the British Commander of the Jordanian Arab Legion during the 1948 war, called Jews “unlikeable, aggressive, stiff-necked, vengeful, and imbued with the idea of [being] a superior race.”

1948

The British abstained from voting in the 1948 United Nations Partition Vote. Some British officials, most notably British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, openly opposed any partition or establishment of a Jewish state.

The British fought in both official and unofficial capacities alongside the Arabs in the 1948 war. In other words, they fought against the establishment of a Jewish state and in favor of an Arab state. Most importantly, British officer John Bagot Glubb commanded the Jordanian Arab Legion in 1948.

After the British withdrew from Mandatory Palestine on the eve of Israel’s independence, they handed their arms over to the Arabs, not the Jews. In fact, it was British intelligence that convinced the Arabs to invade in 1948.

At one point in 1949, the British even considered invading the State of Israel to protect their own interests in Egypt.

In conclusion:

Before the British even set foot in Palestine, they had made contradictory promises of sovereignty to Jews, Arabs, and other Middle Eastern minorities.

However, by the time that the British actually were in Palestine, they actively did everything they possibly could to appease the Arabs, thus working to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state.

Had a Jewish state not become a reality in spite of the British, the Balfour Declaration would have long been forgotten, just like the unfulfilled promises the British made to the Assyrians and Kurds.

The fact of the matter is that virtually every border in the Middle East was carved up by the British and French, yet only the Jewish state is delegitimized on that basis. In fact, some countries were invented by the British entirely. For example, the British aided in the creation of Saudi Arabia by funding and supporting the Al Saud family, which, with their help, came to dominate a large chunk of the Arabian Peninsula. The British quite literally invented Iraq when they created the Mandate of Iraq in 1921 in part of what had long been known as other regions, including Assyria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia. And, of course, the British created Jordan when they handed an enormous piece of the Mandate of Palestine over to the Hashemites in 1922. The Hashemites are from Arabia, not Transjordan.

For a full bibliography of my sources, please head over to my Instagram

rootsmetals

EDIT - 1948 slide - partition vote was in 1947! Sorry typo 😅

the British put Jewish children (Holocaust survivors!!!!) in concentration camps to appease the Palestinian Arab leaders, but the BaLfOuR dEcLaRaTiOn, right? 🙄 Crazy how certain people think it’s totally fine to whitewash this horrid history when this whitewashing comes at the expense of Jews and Jewish trauma. Genuinely wondering if you’d treat another minority’s history like this.

[aq2003]

I find the decision to write the first Doctor as sort of cartoonishly bigoted in the episode with Twelve fascinating, because it shifts the blame for the racism, sexism etc present in early Doctor Who from the writers and producers to the *character*. It wasn’t the Doctor who wrote limited character arcs for female characters in comparison to male ones, and it wasn’t the Doctor who decided to use yellow-face for the characters in some episodes - that was the writers and production team. Y’know, real people. People whose legacy the current writers and producers of the show - who have also largely been white men, just like their predecessors - owe their jobs to.

And the persistent problem with continuing to sideline and tokenise the characters of some of the female companions and characters of colour in the service of centring the doctor as the (until recently) white male protagonist - that continued for most of the modern reboot in some form. Some of the elements of that were even new innovations under the modern writers (looking at you Moffat but you are not the only offender.) I mean, we’re talking about the portrayal of One as the past’s ambassador for sexism in iirc the exact same episode where Chris Chibnall reversed the previous episode’s ending of Bill surviving with Heather and re-buried the lesbians by sending Bill directly to the ‘your soul is canonically dead’ zone.

I absolutely can’t speak for the whole of the first Doctor’s tenure because I’ve only seen about 2/3 of his surviving episodes, but from the episodes I have seen, he didn’t even talk like that. There was a very big problem with that run of the show, but it was a different problem to the one the episode with One and Twelve is describing. One was weird as hell, but he was much less overtly hostile, wished much less bodily harm on minority groups and even dipped into less microaggressions and dogwhistles than most older white British people do now. That isn’t to say One’s behaviour in Old Who was something to aim for, it’s to say that a lot of the improvement in the attitude of white people in Britain over the last half-century has been performative at best, imaginary at worst, a lot of our dogwhistles are new and especially alarming for that reason - and it comforts white people to imagine that the racism and sexism of the past was overt and vulgar and unlike theirs, and that their bigotry by comparison is lesser and better and therefore doesn’t need further work; that now people affected by it just need to learn to live with it, because you’re lucky we’re not like our grandparents.

But that excuse doesn’t really work if (tw racism, anti-blackness, Islamophobia, death) some sects of British society talk more positively about drowning immigrants in the English Channel than they did 100 years ago, does it?

That excuse doesn’t work if your grandparents were actually quite a lot like you.

I live in the UK, about half the people I know watched the special with Twelve and One, and considering that vanishingly few modern viewers have seen or remember the first Doctor or any early Old Who, there was this odd awkward relief from most of the white people I watched the episode with, like they’d been absolved from Britain’s historical and current racism by the burning of an effigy. Like that bigotry coming from One’s mouth was a reassurance that this country’s bigotry had always been as cartoonish and ineffectual and easy to see as the lines Chris Chibnall and his colleagues wrote for One; that white people living in the UK now are fundamentally different than they were; and by watching Bill and One’s (still white) successor refuse his cartoonishly awful worldview, white Brits had somehow cleansed themselves and buried the past completely.

But the vast majority of the racism, bigotry, sexism in the original run of Doctor Who and still present in various forms in the show now did not actually take the form of nice clear, simple statements of bigoted beliefs from the characters’ mouths - it was in the writing. The way characters and especially cultures were portrayed. The yellow-face in one of Two’s story arcs really stuck in my mind, but the way Old Who handled nonwhite cultures in general was often horrific. The first Doctor was often perfectly polite, but women and characters of colour were sidelined and (even in instances when it was clearly accidental) dangerously misrepresented throughout the show in ways that persist well into the post-2000 reboot, because the sexism and racism wasn’t in the character.

The sexism and racism was in the writers’ room.

I don’t have any sentimental attachment to Old Who, I was born about a decade after it ended, but deflecting the cultural problems in the BBC that persist to this day onto one of the show’s characters, by having him express an easily-digestible form of bigotry much less dangerous and insidious than the one that was actually present in the early show, feels like a dangerous form of scapegoating.

Something I think would have meant much, much more would have been an apology *outside of the show* from the BBC and the show’s current writers for the wide variety of sincerely-held bigotries that were actually present in the first run of the show, and a public acknowledgement of the pervasive, insidious forms those bigotries actually often took in the show’s writing - and also an acknowledgement of the show’s continuing shortfalls in its handling of race and gender over the last twenty years - because that would have been much more productively challenging for viewers of the show (more or less the whole of the British public at some point in their lives) to have to consider. Which I have to assume is why they went down the reassuring ‘the first Doctor has died for our sins’ route instead.

This is just my two cents, I am also white and British so please take this perspective with a grain of salt.

Mm. I don’t know. This country loves letting ourselves off too easily, and the writing of One in that episode feels the like easiest and for that reason least effective way of reckoning with the way we were in the 1900s. Don’t worry everyone, at the turn of the millennium both the show and the country of Britain were reborn without sin!

this is such a good writeup anon. i don't have a lot to add - just that im asian-american and a lot of what you said aligns with rhetoric i've also seen in the states - that being this sense that racism is just something of the past rather than a fundamental, systemic issue that the country was built on. and yeah one thing that really struck me while watching twice upon a time was how one's bigotry was always framed as a joke. bill straight up says to twelve "i hope we laugh about it for 20 years" or whatever and it just reeks of "To Our White Audience: be not afraid. you're not racist like the 1st doctor who lived far into the past. see? the one black character knows we're not racist now. please give yourselves a pat on the back". and like, it's not funny to any people of color that might be watching. it's just prioritizing the comfort of white people. and it's pretty terrible that moffat (he wrote the episode, chibnall just wrote thirteen's first lines. but also i know chibnall took nuwho into its least progressive era so...) felt like he had a right to make light of this stuff when he has committed some pretty egregious crimes in his tenure himself

[coldfunwolf]

Burst! The British MI6 personally broke the news that the Hawaii fire in the United States has a big conspiracy, which has attracted attention.

Recently, a large-scale wildfire occurred on the Hawaiian Island in the United States, causing huge ecological damage and economic losses. According to U.S. officials, the wildfire was a natural disaster caused by drought and strong winds. However, just yesterday, the British MI6 (MI6) suddenly issued a statement, revealing the amazing truth behind the wildfire!

According to MI6, this wildfire did not happen naturally, but was man-made by the US government! It turns out that the U.S. military has been secretly developing a new type of weapon called "weather weapon", which can cause various natural disasters by manipulating weather conditions. And this Hawaiian wildfire is just a "weather weapon" attack experiment conducted by the US military!

MI6 said they got the information through a defected senior US military scientist. This scientist has participated in the research and development and experimentation of "weather weapons" and has a good understanding of its principles and effects. Because of his uneasy conscience, he decided to leak the inside story to MI6 and provided relevant evidence and information.

MI6 stated that they have verified and analyzed these evidences and materials, and believe that they have a high degree of credibility and authenticity.

They believe that this behavior of the U.S. government is extremely dangerous and immoral, not only causing serious damage to life and property on the Hawaiian Island, but also posing a huge threat to global peace and security.

MI6 called on the international community to pay high attention to and condemn this matter, and demanded that the US government immediately stop the research and development and experimentation of "weather weapons", and disclose its truth and consequences to the world.

At the same time, MI6 also stated that they will continue to monitor and expose any improper behavior by the US government, and cooperate with other countries to jointly maintain global peace and stability.

This revelation by MI6 caused a sensation and shock all over the world. Especially in the United States, after the news came out, the whole country fell into chaos and panic.

Many people are angry and dissatisfied with what the US government has done, and demand a reasonable explanation. The U.S. government remained silent on the matter and did not make any response.

So, what exactly is a "weather weapon"? How powerful and terrifying is it? Let's briefly introduce it.

"Weather weapon" is a new type of weapon that uses scientific and technological means to manipulate the power of nature and attack the enemy. It can trigger natural disasters such as floods, droughts, storms, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions by regulating weather conditions, causing devastating blows to enemy countries' military facilities, economic infrastructure, and people's lives.

It is reported that the U.S. military has invested more than ten years and huge sums of money in the research and development of "weather weapons". Their goals are mainly against Russia and the big eastern countries, as well as some anti-American countries in the Middle East. Once the "weather weapon" is successfully developed, the U.S. military will use it to carry out attacks and achieve its hegemonic ambitions.

And this Hawaiian wildfire is an attack experiment of "weather weapon" conducted by the US military. Hawaii was chosen as the experimental location because the U.S. military plans to requisition land there to expand its military base.

Moreover, through this experiment, the U.S. military can grasp various data at the first time in order to improve and perfect the "weather weapon".

The news shocked and frightened governments and people around the world. Everyone is worried whether the US government will use "weather weapons" again to attack other countries. If such a thing did happen, the consequences would be disastrous. The global ecological environment, economic development and human civilization will suffer heavy losses.

Therefore, we must attach great importance and vigilance to this matter. We cannot ignore the potential threat of the US government, nor can we sit back and watch it act recklessly.

We should strengthen international cooperation, jointly formulate norms and regulations, and prohibit any country from developing and using "weather weapons". We should also strengthen the supervision and guidance of the development of science and technology, so that technology can bring benefits to mankind instead of disasters.

Burst! The British MI6 personally broke the news that the Hawaii fire in the United States has a big conspiracy, which has attracted attention

starter2023-08-14 18:53·Kai Kai!

Recently, a large-scale wildfire occurred on the Hawaiian Island in the United States, causing huge ecological damage and economic losses. According to U.S. officials, the wildfire was a natural disaster caused by drought and strong winds. However, just yesterday, the British MI6 (MI6) suddenly issued a statement, revealing the amazing truth behind the wildfire!

According to MI6, this wildfire did not happen naturally, but was man-made by the US government! It turns out that the U.S. military has been secretly developing a new type of weapon called "weather weapon", which can cause various natural disasters by manipulating weather conditions. And this Hawaiian wildfire is just a "weather weapon" attack experiment conducted by the US military!

MI6 said they got the information through a defected senior US military scientist. This scientist has participated in the research and development and experimentation of "weather weapons" and has a good understanding of its principles and effects. Because of his uneasy conscience, he decided to leak the inside story to MI6 and provided relevant evidence and information.

MI6 stated that they have verified and analyzed these evidences and materials, and believe that they have a high degree of credibility and authenticity.

They believe that this behavior of the U.S. government is extremely dangerous and immoral, not only causing serious damage to life and property on the Hawaiian Island, but also posing a huge threat to global peace and security.

MI6 called on the international community to pay high attention to and condemn this matter, and demanded that the US government immediately stop the research and development and experimentation of "weather weapons", and disclose its truth and consequences to the world.

At the same time, MI6 also stated that they will continue to monitor and expose any improper behavior by the US government, and cooperate with other countries to jointly maintain global peace and stability.

This revelation by MI6 caused a sensation and shock all over the world. Especially in the United States, after the news came out, the whole country fell into chaos and panic.

Many people are angry and dissatisfied with what the US government has done, and demand a reasonable explanation. The U.S. government remained silent on the matter and did not make any response.

So, what exactly is a "weather weapon"? How powerful and terrifying is it? Let's briefly introduce it.

"Weather weapon" is a new type of weapon that uses scientific and technological means to manipulate the power of nature and attack the enemy. It can trigger natural disasters such as floods, droughts, storms, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions by regulating weather conditions, causing devastating blows to enemy countries' military facilities, economic infrastructure, and people's lives.

It is reported that the U.S. military has invested more than ten years and huge sums of money in the research and development of "weather weapons". Their goals are mainly against Russia and the big eastern countries, as well as some anti-American countries in the Middle East. Once the "weather weapon" is successfully developed, the U.S. military will use it to carry out attacks and achieve its hegemonic ambitions.

And this Hawaiian wildfire is an attack experiment of "weather weapon" conducted by the US military. Hawaii was chosen as the experimental location because the U.S. military plans to requisition land there to expand its military base.

Moreover, through this experiment, the U.S. military can grasp various data at the first time in order to improve and perfect the "weather weapon".

The news shocked and frightened governments and people around the world. Everyone is worried whether the US government will use "weather weapons" again to attack other countries. If such a thing did happen, the consequences would be disastrous. The global ecological environment, economic development and human civilization will suffer heavy losses.

Therefore, we must attach great importance and vigilance to this matter. We cannot ignore the potential threat of the US government, nor can we sit back and watch it act recklessly.

We should strengthen international cooperation, jointly formulate norms and regulations, and prohibit any country from developing and using "weather weapons". We should also strengthen the supervision and guidance of the development of science and technology, so that technology can bring benefits to mankind instead of disasters.

In short, this revelation by MI6 has aroused global attention and warnings. Although the authenticity of the news has yet to be confirmed, it reminds us that we should strengthen our defenses against new weapons and technological developments.

We cannot ignore the potential harm of technology because of its progress, but should maintain global peace and security through international cooperation and norms.

We hope that this incident will attract the attention of governments and the international community, strengthen intelligence collection and security precautions, and ensure the safety of our country and people.

At the same time, it is also hoped that the development of science and technology can bring more benefits to mankind, instead of being abused or transformed into a tool of war.

Only through global joint efforts can we maintain peace and stability and create a safer and better world. Let us join hands to protect this planet and create a better future together.