More lies from the Palestine campaign
balletWe have received this message from the co-chair of the Camden branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign:
Dear Mr Lebrecht
Even among current propaganda and misinformation, this is a malicious lie. Barclays is a bank. It has no ‘complicity’ in anything other than business. In any event, none of its alleged interest has any connection with its sponsorship of London’s most intensive ballet venue.
As for genocide whatever one thinks of Israeli actions in Gaza, there has been no genocide. The population has suffered greatly and estimates of deaths range from 11,000 to 40,000, a proportion of whom were armed Hamas operatives. General estimates put the Gaza population between 500,000 and 2 million.
This is not genocide, by any definition. Some international bodies have accused Israel of plotting genocide, but that is by no means the same thing.
What we have here is a malign attempt to destroy the arts in Britain and other countries by means of a well-organised, well-funded PSC which cares nothing for art and even less for truth. Everyone is entitled to an independent view on Israel-Palestine, but the PSC is out to destroy art at any cost.
Spot on Mr. Lebrecht. Besides your accurate portrayal of their dishonesty, these people like those so-called climate activists should be called pro- “Philistines” Notice that they almost always focus their attacks on Western fine art and western art music
When they show up at an EDM or rap concert to protest I’ll be impressed.
They showed up at the Re’im EDM music festival on October 7th, 2023.
Up to a point, Lord Copper.
Norman, your logic is wasted because it’s not just about Gaza. These fully funded red-green-white-black-squiggle people are looking for fights. Sadler’s Wells and Barclays here provide one of countless places, times and excuses. The police are out-manned and afraid, so they appease, looking foolish. The future will be martial law and loss of our freedoms, if we are lucky. If we are not, then it will be as Emmanuel Macron warned and Elon Musk forecast: civil war, in Paris and London at least, with evil succeeding in ripping Western society apart. Have you considered how quickly those 300,000 marchers along Piccadilly after October 7 could storm the Houses of Parliament, the Abbey, St Paul’s, Clarence House? It would take minutes. And install bombs, to make demands? This where present blindness is leading.
Stay safe!
“300,000 marchers along Piccadilly after October 7 could storm the Houses of Parliament”
Did you really see them? So many were naive, white, middle class, poseurs, with no understanding of history before the year they came into existence. They couldn’t storm a chicken coop.
So many naive, white, middle class, poseurs, with no understanding of history managed to do a pretty good job storming the US Capital back in January of 2021.
Oh, they could storm it — January 6 in the US proved that. They just wouldn’t know why.
Exactly correct. In fact, the militant:civilian ratio – even if one takes Hamas’s figures at face value, which one would be foolish to do – stands at around 1:1, far and away better than in any other comparable modern urban conflict.
As a matter of interest, are these people picketing companies that are involved with the baby-killing, raping and actually genocidal terrorists of Hamas – Al Jazeera, for instance?
Strange how this website has gone so far out of its way to support a country run by a murderous wannabe autocrat that has indiscriminately killed 40,000 people, many innocent women and children.
Sure, you’ll condemn Putin until the cows come home, but clearly see no inconsistency when it comes to championing Netanyahu and his desperate efforts to cling to power.
Twenty-seven ignorant nodding dogs and counting.
Now that really *is* a telling argument.
To my eyes (and ears), this smacks of the anarchist-rent-a-mob who show up anywhere there may be a legitimate rally, demonstration, etc. They were there at some anti-Iraq war demonstrations, at some anti-G7 rallies, at some anti-KKK rallies, at some pro-Trump rallies, etc. They’re there essentially to disrupt well-intentioned, well-meant events. Some less well-intentioned observers will fail to distinguish between them and those who’ve shown up to honestly support the cause of the event being held for.
Well said.
The Lancet says the true death toll could be over 186,000 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext
Then Lancet has long been a PLO mouthpiece. No reliable medic trusts its absurd propaganda
Jim, that’s already been exposed as the rubbish it is.
“Barclays is a bank. It has no ‘complicity’ in anything other than business.”
Do you mean that no moral judgement can attach to business decisions? That decisions on the basis of business considerations are immune to moral assessment?
That sounds like a licence for, for instance, slavery. “But that’s how we make our profit. It’s a purely *business* decision.”
It’s a preposterous statement. What about economic sanctions against South Africa, which were very important in bringing an end to an appallingly-cast regime? Most trade sanctions are imposed because of some moral objection to the actions of a regime.
And matters other than “pure business” forced the purveyors of a perfectly legal product — tobacco — from sponsoring many sporting and artistic associations. In the case of the latter, it was very threatening to many companies for whom a major tobacco firm had been a major sponsor for decades.
I think this is either a rather naive or a particularly obstinate attitude to business.
Why even dignify these cretins with oxygen?
Because we dignify cretins like Anthony with oxygen. It’s called democracy and basic human rights. If you can’t accept and respect that, and feel free to move to an autocratic state or live by yourself by your own laws. If you can’t do that, then re-educate yourself and be a properly democratic citizen.
Thanks for the public service announcement, Norman. I wasn’t aware of this. Hopefully your London-based readers who believe in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will come out in full force to support this.[redacted]
Ah right, so the activists’ claim, corrected, is that Barclays merely invests in the planning of genocide and a ton of civilian killing.
Glad we cleared that up. When you put it like that…
As for why target Barclays: its support of the arts is reputation management. If you want to hit their reputation as they want to do, you hit the activities they do to launder their brand – just like going after the Sackler family involved getting their name off museum buildings.
It is tragic how the Useful Idiots on the Left have hijacked the word “genocide” and are using the term to poison Western democratic societies.
I have been to Dachau.
The ‘Final Solution’ to eliminate the entire Jewish race, was attempted genocide.
Fortunately it did not succeed.
Idiots from all sides toss around terms that once meant something that serious people took seriously because they understood the freight such words carry.
The Telegraph is NOT a “fascist rag,” feminists are not “nazis,” with or without a prefix, Justin Trudeau is not a “communist,” nor is Keir Starmer.
The actions of Israel in Gaza, and now in the West Bank, are vulnerable to very serious criticism and indeed campaigns in opposition. But we still have to believe that even the monstrous Yetanyahu gang of thugs is not set upon wiping all Palestinians from the face of the earth, or at least the two strips adjacent to them. We are expected to believe that they are “merely” seeking to remove the people who launched not only October 7 but the decades of attack upon their state and people. That is not genocide.
If some of their actions cause people to question — sincerely, and with backing information — the sincerity of Israel’s approach, perhaps it is on them to review that approach. Because, given the verifiable body count, it has either worked and can be ended, or it is not working.
Dear Morningstar Protesr Person (nameless?):
It is not genocide.
Period.
I’m not sure of that. The meaning of “genocide” has been stretched, yes, but I don’t think it’s lost touch with its original meaning.
I take it that its original meaning was a matter of action undertaken with a view to the elimination of a whole race or nation of people.
In that sense, what is happening in Gaza is not genocide, and David Starkey was right to say that slavery was not a form of genocide.
However, the word seems now to be used for large-scale killing where the victims are treated with the same kind of disregard for human beings–where the victims are treated as if they were trash that can be disposed of–as occurs in genocide as originally conceived.
Genocide Watch has reported that, over two decades, 62,000 Christians in Nigeria have been murdered by Islamists in an attempt to exterminate Christianity. More than 32,000 moderate Nigerian Muslims and non-faith individuals have also been murdered.
Where’s the outrage? But then no Jews involved.
“You play with a lot of feeling, but you don’t play the notes.” You huff and puff and strike noble poses, but takhlisdik (in substance) you’re all hot air. If the mighty Lancet is a propaganda rag, what is Slipped Disc?
Quite right! PSC cares nothing about the arts and is just using them as a platform for malicious misinformation. The UK needs to recognize that Gaza is not a British issue. Its real concerns are jobs, housing, education and supporting the arts which are central to a democratic society.
The aim of ‘liberalism’ is the complete destruction of Western Classical Music. No more concerts of Western Classical Music anywhere in the world, ever. Fortunately, I do not believe that this aim is achievable.
7 October is really the only relevant point. The Israeli people have finally had enough. they should fight until there is full capitulation of laying down of arms all hostages alive or dead returned. There is no other way – diplomacy has failed.