Politics and Culture
Growing up with the black and white photos and films of the attempted destruction of my people, I never imagined that one day I’d be seeing the same images in colour. pic.twitter.com/WkmzLJRJjR
— Josh Howie (@joshxhowie) December 6, 2024
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From the JC:
Australian police are investigating after a Melbourne charedi synagogue was subjected to an arson attack while worshippers were inside.
Free speech on campus has decreased in the past decade, according to a survey of academics.
The global poll of university staff found that 77 per cent agreed that free speech was more limited than ten years ago, with only 12 per cent disagreeing and 11 per cent unsure.
Those working in the United States felt this particularly strongly, with 83 per cent believing it was the case, while the figure was 80 per cent in the UK. Disciplines such as psychology and clinical health were particularly affected.
The survey by Times Higher Education found concern about the impact of students being offended. However, many academics were more limited by the fear of upsetting colleagues.
One British psychology academic explained that it was increasingly difficult to argue with any position deemed contentious by activists, on topics including gender, colonialism, the Israel-Palestinian conflict and neurodiversity because “any diversion from the accepted line is seen as meaning you are a bad person rather than just someone who disagrees”.
Another said: “Student consumers now increasingly dictate what they want to hear in lectures and seminars”. One British legal academic said he taught “with as little personality as possible because significant numbers of students find offence in anything that they dislike”.
A female academic in UK arts and humanities was “labelled a ‘transphobe’ by an anonymous group of students, aided by their student union, and the process was supported by the university via human resources”.
She said: “I had to argue my position to HR people who knew nothing about the nuance of the debate, and there has been ongoing rumourmongering among students. I am very, very careful now. I am also careful about criticising Hamas, or the Palestinian liberation movement, or suggesting that Israel may have a point. I self-censor now.”.
This does not come as a surprise:
Meanwhile, and related, an anonymous academic speaks up in the JC about antisemitism in UK universities.
As a non-Jewish lecturer at a major university, I can confirm that British academia is structurally racist against Jews. The penny finally dropped as I was second-marking a piece of undergraduate writing in which Jews were openly compared to scurrying vermin, spreading disease.
The student’s illiterate use of grammar, nonsensical punctuation and mixed metaphors would surely have embarrassed Goebbels. But Hitler’s arch propagandist would just as surely have approved of the spirit of the piece. Not that this was a uniquely awful specimen of the kind of “work” I’ve had to face as first and second marker of a large cohort of students since the horror of October 7.
A different piece, produced by a student in the same year group, accused its readers, in the foulest language, of complicity with “genocide” and of “sleeping” while the IDF killed innocent civilians for target practice.
The obvious Jew-hatred of these pieces of writing were one thing. But then there were the comments of the first academic who had marked them, which praised the “Jews-as-vermin” piece as a moving indictment of Israeli “colonisation” that displayed a fine philosophical turn of phrase and a carefulness of language. As for the “genocide” piece, my colleague reassured the student that his message was deeply important.
This, in a nutshell, is the problem: not the fact that immature, 20-year-old students have been brought up on a diet of hating the West, hating Jews and unashamedly milking their self-declared victim status, but the fact that this pernicious nonsense is actively encouraged, praised and taught by the academy…
Well yes. Young hot-headed students may perhaps be afforded some slack here, but those academics who encourage it – that's something else altogether.
Liel Leibovitz in Tablet on the case of novelist Boualem Sansal:
Boualem Sansal, one of France’s most acclaimed authors, disappeared on Nov. 16. For more than a week, his whereabouts were unknown. Finally, and under mounting pressure, the Algerian government admitted that it had seized Sansal and was holding him on charges of “endangering the nation.”
Born in Algeria, Sansal had shown in his writing a determination to expose the corruption and incompetence of the Algerian government. This did not go down well.
In 2008, for example, he published Le village de l’Allemand, translated into English as The German Mujahid. It tells the story—based on a real-life account—of a Nazi officer who flees to Algeria, helps the National Liberation Army violently kick out the French, and retires to a small village. When his children discover his secret identity, they have to wrestle not only with their lurid family lore but also with the question, virtually undiscussed before or since in the Arab world, of the affinity between Arab leaders and the Nazi party and ideology.
The work, advocating moral responsibility over tribal prejudice, infuriated many in his native country, but by then Sansal didn’t care. He was, he frequently said, a man exiled in his own homeland, committed first and foremost to telling the truth. So when an invitation came, in 2012, to attend Jerusalem’s Writers Festival, Sansal gladly accepted.
As a writer, he told the Israeli press at the time, he was sensitive to words and how they were used, and couldn’t stomach the thought that most Arab countries frowned upon people speaking freely about “Israel” or “the Jews,” a form of censorship, he added, that poisons minds and hearts.
“As soon as there is freedom of speech,” he said, “it will be possible to disagree with Israel if one wishes to do so—only without the hate. This is the reason I traveled to Israel and this is the reason I will return. We can argue about a certain Israeli policy, but the most important thing is to be friends.”
The same year, Sansal won a Editions Gallimard Arabic Novel prize, but the award’s sponsors, France’s Arab Ambassadors Council, revoked the 15,000 euros promised to the winner, arguing it could not reward anyone who had visited, and had nice things to say about, the Jewish state. The council’s decision, the director of France Culture radio later revealed, was influenced in large part by Hamas, which successfully lobbied the council’s members to punish Sansal.
“I wouldn’t wish Hamas upon my worst enemy,” Sansal said in response. “It is a terrorist movement of the worst kind. Hamas has taken Gazans hostage. It has taken Islam hostage.” And the Arabs, he added, had “shut themselves in a prison of intolerance.”
Some French intellectuals stood up for Sansal. Many others marked him as reactionary, someone who foolishly defied the “red-green alliance” that brought together radical Marxists on the one hand and fervent Islamists on the other under one trendy banner. When his next book, 2084, was published in 2016, it received mixed reviews. A riff on George Orwell’s famous dystopian novel, the book tells the tale of a postapocalyptic civilization governed by a fundamentalist cult that bears more than a passing resemblance to Salafism. And to many on the chic left, it was just another example of benighted boobs hating on the religion of peace.
“In twenty years, when the Islamophobic waters of France have ebbed, we will wonder how we could have gotten so excited about such a slow thriller,” wrote the editor at the time of the magazine Paris Match, adding that “fear is an excellent appeal” and that Sansal was merely exaggerating the threat Islam posed to the Western world.
Earlier this year, Sansal, feeling that his own safety in Algeria could no longer be guaranteed, became a French citizen. President Macron attended the ceremony. And yet, the writer refused calls to stay away from his native land. Like all writers worth a damn, he refused to cower and chose, instead, to fight.
And now he’s in custody, held by an authoritarian regime and accused of imaginary crimes. And while some of the literary world’s braver souls are standing up and demanding his release—a tip of the hat, as always, to the brave Salman Rushdie—most of our bien-pensants are silent. The same mediocrities who collected awards while squawking about the fictitious genocide in Gaza are once again siding with the marauders, betraying a far greater writer seized for the sin of adhering to humanism’s core commitments.
As @ShMMor wrote: “Hauling the Jews in to plead their case before a special tribunal and face the charge that they are the real Nazis has been the fantasy of every antisemite since the first gavel hit the sound block at Nuremberg.” @amnesty, go to hell.
— Blake Flayton (@blakeflayton) December 5, 2024
LNER spent £58,000 repainting one of its trains with a rainbow-themed Pride livery, it has emerged.
The cost of the Pride rebranding was revealed after a passenger sent a freedom of information (FoI) request asking the government-owned train company for more information about it.
But instead of answering Carol Fossick’s other detailed questions, a senior LNER manager wrote back and labelled her “transphobic” after trawling through her social media posts….
Maya Forstater, the chief executive of the charity Sex Matters, said: “LNER’s refusal to respond to an FoI request on the basis that the requester had expressed views that challenge gender ideology was disgraceful and discriminatory.
“It’s appalling to see one of the UK’s largest transport companies losing touch with reality to the extent that it sees a focus on ‘binary sex divisions’ and criticism of its expensively clad Pride train as ‘vexatious’ and appropriate grounds for refusal.
“This attempt at thought-policing passengers for blaspheming against the rainbow suggests a corporate culture that is more akin to a medieval church than a modern business.
“The fact that LNER even felt entitled to refuse to respond to an FoI on that basis suggests that staff and managers within the business must have accepted a stultifying culture of fear and obedience.”…
When the Pride-themed Azuma train was unveiled last June, rail bosses said it “celebrates LNER’s support of Pride activities on the LNER route as well as a long-term commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives”.
David Horne, LNER’s managing director, added: “At LNER, we truly focus on creating an inclusive workplace where our people feel able to be themselves.”
Yet the manager who wrote to Ms Fossick told her: “Given the content of your recent tweets, we believe continuing to engage with your request could lead to harmful discourse and cause distress to our transgender employees and the people that the Pride Train represents.
“The repeated focus on these specific topics, coupled with the use of transphobic language and alignment with anti-trans figures, suggests a potential motive beyond simply seeking information.”
Although the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) ruled in Ms Fossick’s favour after she challenged LNER’s refusal to answer her, The Telegraph understands that the information she requested has still not been disclosed.
Have LNER been Stonewalled? I do believe they have.
Jack Delano, March 1943. "Santa Fe Railroad activities across New Mexico. Men coming out of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad shops in Albuquerque at the end of the day's shift."
[Photo: Shorpy/Jack Delano for the Office of War Information]
For perhaps the best guide at the moment for understanding what's happening in Syria, here's Jonathan Spyer in the JC:
Syria, like Caesar's Gaul, is divided into three parts. The largest part is under the control of Assad, responsible for the death of some 500,000 Syrians and the flight of millions more, and supported by Russia and Iran.
The second part is controlled by the Kurds:
The self-styled Autonomous Administration of North East Syria (AANES) is recognised by no state in the world. It has nevertheless created the most stable and functioning area of Syria. Its fighters formed the key ground ally of the US-led coalition in the war against the Islamic State, concluded victoriously in 2019. Once the toast of all those opposed to the murderous excesses of ISIS, the Syrian Kurds and their beleaguered enclave are now largely forgotten by the world. They are nevertheless determined to maintain and defend their zone of control against ongoing attempts by both Assad and the Sunni Islamists supported by Turkey to encroach upon it.
Then there's the remaining troublesome 10%, bordering and supported by Turkey, with two Sunni Islamist governing groups, the so-called Syrian Interim Government to the north, and the Syrian Salvation Government in the south.
What has happened in recent days is that the Syrian Salvation Government, an entity maintained by a Sunni jihadi group called Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), has launched an offensive against the Assad regime, and has achieved remarkable success. Its allies in the Syrian Interim Government, meanwhile, have embarked on their own offensive against the Syrian Kurds.
HTS have rapidly covered ground. In a remarkable achievement, they have taken Syria’s second city, Aleppo. They are now menacing the city of Hama, 100 km or so further south. As a result of the gains of recent days, the Sunni Islamist enclave in Syria now has a population of around 7 million people.
The Assad regime is not yet in serious danger. The Sunni jihadis’ lines of advance are still far north of Damascus, and east of the Assad’s heartland in Latakia Province on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. As of now, at least, HTS’s remarkable offensive has simply re-set the balance between the areas of control in Syria.
So why should no-one have been surprised by the offensive?
First, because frozen conflicts rarely stay frozen forever. The causes that originally animated them tend to make themselves manifest at a time when one or another of the sides finds it opportune.
Secondly, because all serious observers of Syria have known for a while that behind its rhetoric, the Assad regime is a depleted and rotting structure, dependent on its powerful Iranian and Russian allies for survival. These allies are currently distracted in wars with Israel and Ukraine respectively. HTS, whose leader Abu Mohammed al Jolani is as tactically flexible as he is strategically rigid, spotted the opening and chose to strike.
And lastly, no one should be surprised at rival ethno-sectarian forces, supported by powerful regional and global states clashing in the Middle East across the landscape of collapsed states, because that is the very essence of the way that power is wielded across the region at the present moment. From this point of view, current events in Syria offer a kind of microcosm of the dynamics of the region as a whole. Hopefully, both western governments and publics are watching carefully, and may even emerge better informed about the nature and dynamics of the Middle East.
Not sure about that. If Israel's not involved no one really cares about who's killing, or who and how many are being killed.
WOW: The President of Turkey calls for the end of Western Civilization: “Western civilization will collapse, our divine and humane civilization will flourish.”
How is Turkey still a NATO member?pic.twitter.com/9kbdkBsORj
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) December 4, 2024
The normally unspoken bit out loud:
“To have a transgender child has made me so much more interesting” Annette Bening, channeling the worst of Hollywood, speaks outside SCOTUS during the Skrmetti hearing.
Are bans on puberty blockers for kids constitutional?
🤷♀️ But having a trans kid makes you interesting & wise pic.twitter.com/qQWGFW3Cly
— WomenAreReal (@WomenAreReals) December 5, 2024
In a nutshell:
The ACLU think its cruel to give sex offenders drugs that chemically castrate them.
The same ACLU thinks it's a human right to give innocent children the same drugs to 'affirm their gender identity'.#DefundTheACLU https://t.co/9p8iMfpGaj pic.twitter.com/5KNeOSHMCM— Biology Rules Ok (@OkayBiology) December 4, 2024
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The ACLU has become a single-issue organisation, now almost entirely concerned with trans activism.
It was suggested by Judge Alito to ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio in the current SCOTUS trans rights case that the Cass Review blew a hole in the standard trans line that puberty blockers saved lives…."better a trans kid than a dead kid". Strangio admitted that maybe suicides weren't affected, but, um, "suicidality" was.
As far as I can see (and admittedly I haven't spent much time checking) the majority of the US mainstream press (NYT, WaPo, etc.) see the SCOTUS case as a brave move against nasty right-wing attempts to deny trans children the benefits of "gender-affirming care". For a start the use of that heart-warming phrase "gender-affirming care" skews the whole debate, because of course to call it by what it really is – the medical mutilation of troubled children and the denial of every child's right to go through puberty, in pursuit of a homophobic and regressive social contagion based on gender stereotypes – would be too unpleasantly clear about what's really going on here.
The Nation, for instance, (OK not properly mainstream, but mainstream views here) with this embarrassing nonsense (via b&w):
Today, the Supreme Court will hear a case, United States v. Skrmetti, deciding whether to uphold these regulations of what trans medicine’s critics have unduly called “experimental” healthcare. To the contrary, leading medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) firmly support gender-affirming care for minors as “medically necessary” and potentially lifesaving. So, if the medical establishment isn’t driving this narrative of dangerous uncertainty, who is?
For the past several years, conservative political leaders and fringe medical voices have waged an often covert campaign against gender-affirming care. Borrowing from fossil fuel, tobacco, and Covid-19 science denial strategies, these agents of scientific uncertainty have cast doubt on trans medicine’s safety and efficacy. Just like those “merchants of doubt” who spread untruths about humanity’s impact on the climate and the dangers of secondhand smoke, extraordinarily well-funded groups have spread the idea that gender-affirming care’s evidence base is perilously uncertain.
"Fringe medical voices". You get the picture.
Mick Hartley 