Mick Hartley

Politics and Culture

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  • Genocidal Hamas

    Palestinian Bassem Eid in the Times of Israel points the finger at the real genocidists in the Gaza conflict:

    Hamas’ desire to violently destroy Israel and replace it with an Islamist theocracy is hardly a secret; they openly and repeatedly expressed their intentions in their 1988 founding charter and in their oft stated desire to repeat October 7 over and over in televised interviews.

    Since its violent take over of Gaza in 2007, Hamas has deliberately propagated genocidal rhetoric throughout Gazan society. The curriculum for Gazan children features incitement to kill Jews, support for terrorism, and prayers for Israel’s destruction. Children and young teens in Hamas summer camps practice stabbing, shooting, and kidnapping Jewish civilians. Copies of Mein Kampf have been found in terror bases across the enclave.

    Holocaust scholars recognize that a key stage of genocide is denial, and historically, its worst perpetrators (notably the Nazis) took great pains to cover up their crimes. Hamas, on the other hand, filmed and broadcast their savage atrocities for the world to witness. Yahya Sinwar, planning the assault, directed Hamas to deliberately target civilians and residential communities. As victims–like kidnapped children and the violated corpse of a young woman–were paraded through the streets, scores of civilians emerged into the streets to spit on them, celebrate, and hand out candies.

    And yet much of the world – building on decades of anti-Israel reporting, and the glorification of so-called Palestinian rights – was only too happy to seize the chance at last to turn the tables on those troublesome Jews, and accuse them of genocide when they dared to fight back. Resurrection of the old antisemitic tropes fitted nicely with a displaced colonial guilt that could, with much historical distortion, be loaded onto Israel.

    As a Palestinian, it is vital that I speak the truth. Hamas committed genocide on October 7th. Every attempt to aggravate their denial by smearing Israel only dishonors the victims, weakens the legitimacy of real genocide charges, and protects the perpetrators. Justice must be done, and history must never forget the crimes that were committed on October 7, 2023 – and by whom.

  • Finsbury Park

    This morning.

  • Defector women in China

    A glimpse into the grim lives of North Korean women defectors, stuck in China and unable to get to South Korea. From the Daily NK:

    A North Korean defector in China’s Liaoning province who ran away from her Chinese husband was caught and savagely beaten by her Chinese in-laws. The woman had been trying to start a new life for herself in China after two unsuccessful attempts to reach South Korea….

    According to the source, the woman, identified here as “A,” had married a Chinese man after being sold to China by human traffickers in her early 20s. She was saddled with all the housework after bearing two children and was treated as more of a housemaid than a wife for the past decade.

    “A” had wanted to send money to her family members back in North Korea, but her Chinese husband did not even give her an allowance. She then asked her husband for permission to work outside the house to earn money to send back home, but he refused that request as well.

    Both her Chinese husband and in-laws were constantly suspicious that “A” might run away. Exhausted by relentless surveillance and control, “A” made up her mind to reach South Korea. But her two attempts, in 2023 and 2024, both ended in failure....

    “A” had been waiting for a chance to escape and slipped out of her house unnoticed at the end of October. But a neighbor spotted her and alerted her in-laws, who soon managed to catch her.

    In villages that are home to defector women, everybody in the village keeps an eye on them. When villagers see defectors stealing out of their homes late at night or early in the morning, they assume they’re making a run for South Korea and contact their family members or report the incident to police, the source said.

    According to the source, “A” is only one of many female defectors in China who have to endure the surveillance, control and oppression of their Chinese husbands and in-laws.

    Female defectors cannot become legal residents of China even if they marry a Chinese man. Some attempt to reach South Korea, where legal residency awaits, but if they are caught on the journey, they run the risk of being severely beaten or forcibly repatriated by Chinese police, the source said.

    Female defectors who are dissatisfied with their life in China would prefer to go straight to South Korea, but since that isn’t feasible, they try to meet new men to improve their situation in China, the source said.

    As travel to South Korea grows more difficult, female defectors are being pushed closer and closer to the brink, the source added.

    They are, in effect, domestic slaves

  • Where the BBC are

    This is commonplace for the BBC and its presenters. On Question Time in 2021, for instance, Professor Robert Winston’s “I will say this categorically, you cannot change your sex.”, horrified Fiona Bruce, who quickly chimed in about how controversial such a view was. That was his last appearance on the show.

    And why presenters who step even slightly out of line, like Martine Croxhall, must be punished.

  • Failing to live up to the obligations that come with its privileged position

    A Telegraph View – aka editorial – on the current BBC crisis:

    The BBC retains a major share of the UK’s media market, and a special place in the national psyche. Yet it is quite clear that it is failing to live up to the obligations that come with its privileged position, and its status as a publicly funded broadcaster. Director-general Tim Davie should set out clearly how he intends to address this scandal, and what steps he will take to restore confidence in the BBC.

    At present, it appears quite evident that the tail has been allowed to wag the dog: the BBC’s management seems to be letting staff run rampant, apparently scared of the backlash should they insist on proper impartiality and enforcement of editorial standards. Should this continue, then pressure for reform must be applied from without the organisation. 

    There is little hope that the Labour Government – which likely shares the BBC’s biases – will apply the requisite pressure.

    The task therefore falls either to the MPs of the culture, media and sport select committee, or to Ofcom in its role as regulator responsible for the BBC’s editorial standards. One way or another, our national broadcaster must be jolted from its complacency.

    I’m not holding my breath. As they say, the Labour government largely shares the BBC worldview – on trans, on Israel, on Trump. We have to rely on more BBC whistleblowers, and pressure from the rest of the media and the public at large.

  • The biggest breach of the BBC Charter in a generation

  • “Pregnant people”

    Judgement here.

    …however, the ECU considered the facial expression which accompanied the change of “people” to “women” laid it open to the interpretation that it indicated a particular viewpoint in the controversies currently surrounding trans identity…

    That is, it suggested that the BBC was not fully on board with the trans agenda, and the erasure of the word “women” from all discussions of pregnancy and other feminine biological functions. This is not true. Not offending trans people is our number one priority.

  • Institutional mendacity

    Suzanne Moore in the Telegraph, on the BBC and its trans promotion:

    Gaslighting means the creation of a false narrative, and the manipulation of someone else’s perception of reality. On trans issues, by misinforming viewers or ignoring stories that did not fit its pro-trans agenda, this is exactly what the BBC has done.

    The leaked memo speaks of “unintended editorial bias”, but this is a very neutral way of describing what has been going on. Activists within the corporation ran the LGBT desk, which is used by all of the BBC’s news programmes. This small group of journalists was committed to a “a pro-trans agenda” and “keeping other perspectives off air”.

    All things trans were to be celebrated in rainbow-strewn flags in the name of “diversity”. In fact, diversity of reporting was crushed, and no difficult issues were to be mentioned. Coming out as trans was repeatedly described as euphoric, and anyone who questioned this was portrayed as a fascist.

    As stories piled up about how women’s rights were affected, how surgeons in America were worried about the links between gender medicine and cancer, about the irreversible harms of puberty blockers, we continued only to hear tales of those “assigned male at birth” finding liberation after fathering children and donning an unsuitable rubber mini skirt.

    The voices of “detransitioners”, the infertile and anorgasmic were not featured. The voices of women who contested the notion of gender identity itself, many of them lesbians and respected writers, were not heard.

    There were rumours of a BBC blacklist, but certainly, even on a programme like Woman’s Hour, you would hear much more from trans women (biological males) than from any gender-critical feminist. Presenters were obsequious to any man presenting as female. Who can forget the sycophantic interview with Grace Lavery about his book Please Miss: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Penis?

    Serious issues were ignored in favour of continual fluff pieces about drag queens or about some actress becoming “non-binary” by getting a haircut.

    And it went on for years. It’s still going on. The BBC is powerful enough to live in its own little bubble, and, with no worries about finance with the license fee, there’s no pressure for change. Senior managers need to be held accountable.

    We will look back on all of this – the medical negligence, the distortion and omission of facts, the suppression of those who tried to get at the truth, those permanently damaged by “gender care” – and surely feel ashamed.

    That, at the centre of this misinformation and deceit is our once-cherished BBC confirms what I long suspected. Yet I am still shocked by this institutional mendacity.

  • Green democracy

    Meanwhile, in Bristol:

    The leader of Bristol city council has said his colleagues “have the right” to hold up trans rights placards and walk out of public meetings when women raise concerns about their safety in single-sex spaces.

    Tony Dyer, of the ruling Green Party, told a council meeting that his party colleagues did not have to listen to opinions they found offensive.

    “This is a democracy,” he told a woman in the public gallery. “You have the right to come here and make statements. Councillors have the right to decide whether those statements are offensive to them and how they want to respond.”

    They’re councillors. They were voted in to listen to the people they represent. What kind of democracy is it if they walk out, like spoiled children with hands over their ears, rather than listen to people with perfectly reasonable points to make that they don’t happen to agree with?

    Bristol city council has criticised the Supreme Court ruling that for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010, the words “woman” and “man” refer to sex at birth. Last month 18 Green councillors walked out during a meeting of the full council whenever members of the public questioned gender ideology.

    At the next full council meeting, on Tuesday, members of the public who raised the Supreme Court ruling and the conduct of councillors were met with a display of handwritten placards and Pride flags from the Green benches and a number of councillors walked out.

    It’s the old “no debate” line that’s been a favourite tactic of trans campaigners for years now. It’s getting stale. People are seeing through it. Not the Greens, though.

    And when it comes from elected councillors, it comes with an unpleasantly totalitarian smell.

  • “Understand what they mean before crying about it”

    If you’ve been following the Kate Clanchy story – see the Times, or the BBC about the concerted campaign of vilification against her by a small coterie of the offended righteous – you’ll know that one of her gleeful attackers was Monisha Rajesh, a travel writer, who called Clanchy “KKKlanchy” for her supposedly racist book Some Kids.

    Now the story’s out, and, since Clanchy’s publisher has proffered an apology for her treatment, the boot is on the other foot.

    So this is kind of delicious.

    Added: