London music venue claims Palestine ‘genocide’
NewsThis is from Cafe OTO, a place frequented by seekers of contemporary music, including some quite prominent artists:
Cafe OTO joins all those calling for an immediate ceasefire and end to the genocide currently taking place in Palestine.
We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, and against the violent occupation and apartheid they suffer from.
If you can, please donate, call on your elected officials and demonstrate.
Absolutely shameful. The level of anti-Semitism — even by some posters here — on display the last 2 weeks has been shocking.
There have also been some rather nazti expressions used by posters here — one contributor refers to Palestinians as “vermin,” which has a rather nasty echo, as well as talking about “eradicating” them. He seems to have no problem with genocide one way, despite presumably being sympathetic to the people who more than any others were faced with that very thing.
But there isn’t and can’t be any “genocide” — there aren’t different races here, “only” different religions (and all that that entails). The usual root of all evil.
They are all levantine, Semite, brothers, unless I misconstrue.
Supporting Palestinians and humanitarian efforts in Gaza is not anti-semitic. What’s shameful is your black and white logic. Just because a mother loves one child doesn’t mean she hates the other one.
Those of us who would like to honor humanitarian values on both sides of this conflict are being slammed with forceful rhetoric telling us that we MUST support Israelis and only Israelis.
The words of people like you are violent, forceful, aggressive. We feel threatened into supporting Israel. If we simply try to see the other side, if we speak up for Palestinian human rights, we are called antisemitic. That’s a horrible assumption.
Your demands that we support only Israel, your accusations that if we hesitate to do so, has caused me, for one, to question Israel’s position more closely. And yes, as a result, I am learning that Israel is not blameless in this conflict.
You are shooting yourself in the foot with your anti-semitic accusations.You are creating more ill will. Let people decide for themselves. Let us fairly consider both sides to this conflict, please.
I trust Hamas is also vegan, not just a messenger of peace?
Disgusting.
Well, the Palestinians do suffer from violent occupation and apartheid, and they are currently being slaughtered like fish in a barrel.
That’s not the whole story, but it is true as far as it goes. Unless we accept that there can be no peace.
There will be no peace so long as ignoramuses like Aviano spread blood libels such as apartheid and occupation. Israel is no more an apartheid state than your average EU member and Israel left Gaza in 2005. Making peace with those whose main objective is identical with Nazi Germany of the 1930s means committing suicide and that is something Israelis are not willing to do
Even though I support Israel, there’s something that all its supporters keep saying, and that is: “Israel left Gaza in 2005”. I see and hear that everywhere.
What they don’t talk about is how Israel has had a blockage over Gaza since 2007, controlling water and electricity supplies, good and services exchange, and people’s freedom to leave Gaza. So, how come the people from Israel are OK with that? Yes, of course we condemn Hamas attack and they’re clearly a bunch of terrorists which need to be hunted down. I just don’t know why the people from Israel seem to forget that their government has helped to transform Gaza into a guetto, going against International Law and human rights. I am genuinely interested in an answer.
The supposed “blocade” is the closure of Israel – Gazza border and the searching for military contraband within imported goods.
Is that wicked?
What legal system on earth demands a state to re-suply it’s enemies?
No one has to accept propaganda from terrorists and their collaborators. It’s tragic that you do. And it has nothing to do with peace, whatsoever.
Horrible – no word about the abducted and slaughtered civilians in Israel (most of them inhabitants of a Kibbuz – and most of them in favor of peace and critical of Netanyahu) – typical left nostalgia of Socialism not thinking of the sufferings which came along with it historically!
Surely those who hate Jews are Right-Wing, not Left / socialists?
Mr. Terry must get his news from the Guardian. In the US the support for Hamas and the destruction of Israel is almost entirely coming from the left!
I get my news from MSN, is that right-wing enough for you?
AlanK, I think the divide here is that you & commenter James Weiss are most likely in the UK, whereas Paul Terry & are in the US. You are getting your news about the US thru UK media & making assumptions based on that. Your assumptions are way off.
People in the US do not support Hamas. If there do happen to be any small, radical factions in the US who agree with Hamas, they are definitely on the far right. Many people in the US do, however support humanitarian efforts in Gaza. That is not Hamas and yes, that would be from the left.
Mr. Terry is actually in the US. I see exactly what he sees and I agree with him. It looks like the UK and the US must have different interpretations of political left and right.
Despite differences, what’s extraordinary to me is that despite the billions of aid the US gives to Israel every year – all of which comes from our pockets as taxpayers – you have the gall to claim that there are “Jew Haters” in the US Congress and that the US supports Hamas. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Unbelievable.
Several sources have reported that Jews are less left-leaning than they used to be.
I wonder why?
You really should get out more. The worst anti-Semitism in the US these days is on the left. The Jew haters in Congress are all on the left. And the worst is to be found on left wing college campuses.
By “left-wing”, I assume you mean “left of Ghengis Khan”. Never mind, Mr. Trump, the new Aaron Burr, and his Proud Boys will save you.
A correction to my last post: the Jewish members in the US Congress, to my knowledge, lean left. I just don’t see anti-semitism coming from the left at all in Congress. If it’s there at all, it’s from the far right.
Just curious – are you actually IN the US or are you making this observation from outside the US?
I follow US politics & I have no idea who on the far left you are speaking about. If there is any anti-semitism in US politics it’s coming from the extreme far right followers of Trump: for example, Marjorie Taylor Green & her obsession with “Jewish Space Lasers”. They are so far right and so poorly educated that I don’t think even Trump himself could agree with them.
One of the farthest left politicians in the US is Senator Bernie Sanders who is himself Jewish.
Who exactly are these “Jew Haters” in the US Congress? There are currently 9 Jewish US Senators and 26 Jewish members of the House of Representatives, all deeply admired and respected from where I sit.
If there is any “Jew Hating” going on in the US Congress, these esteemed Jewish members will be the first to see it and I guarantee you they will call it out. To the best of my knowledge none of them lean left.
Who exactly are these leftist “Jew Hating” congress members you’re speaking of?
Jew-haters on the left include US Representatives Omar, Tlaib, Pressley, amd Bush. It’s a small minority but it is real.
Thanks for explaining. I just had a look at them. “Jew-haters” is a pretty strong accusation to level at someone just because they support Palestinian rights. And how convenient that these accusations against these few extreme Dems are coming directly from the GOP.
Conflating foreign policy with religion is a slippery slope. These US politicians may have reason to disagree with Israel’s politics. Many Israelis do, too. That doesn’t make them “Jew Haters”.
Are they criticizing the Jewish religion, Jewish culture, traditions or people because they have Jewish backgrounds? No, they are politicians and they don’t agree with the politics of the country of Israel. Yes, Israel is a country where many Jewish people live. But not agreeing with a country’s politics is not anti-semitism.
That’s like saying that people who don’t agree with US foreign policy are anti-Protestant.
You’ve not been following UK (or indeed US) politics in recent years, clearly.
If you’re in the UK & you want to discuss this conflict from the UK perspective, great. I welcome knowing that view.
But don’t be judging US foreign relations with Israel based on what you read in UK media about the US. You UK folks appear to be seriously uninformed about the US Congress, what’s left or right in the US & what’s going on on US college campuses.
US taxpayers are supplying billions toward the support of Israel. We are following this conflict because we are paying for much of it. If you don’t like what’s going in the US then separate Israel from the US. Stop taking our money.
One more reason never to go there.
Jep, one-sided although correct, in its 50%-ness. Most people keep to their parish refusing to see the whole picture. I grew up in the shadow of an active terrorist group. One of the lucky ones, I “only” lost one friend to their murderous activities (as with all terrorist groups, they said the were “at war”). Said terrorist group had the right to be pissed off but gained no objective credibility (only alarmingly much of the subjective kind) because they used the same methods as the oppressors of the people they purported to represent. Anyone who takes lives is a killer, period. Palestinians and Israelis have both suffered greatly, and continue to do so. It is not they who are to be judged, but the people who, supposedly, represent them. There is no solution to these kinds of conflicts except putting down the arms and talk. And that’s not going to happen because everybody is right and everyone else is wrong.
Puke!
It is a matter of taste: Some people really stand by those who raid communities rape, torture and murder. Of course they have good reasons to so – non of it is done jsut because they are evil: The liberating rape; the peacful beheading of children with shovels in front of their parrents; the freedom enhancing bindind of people together with wire and setting them on fire; the humanitarian cutting open of a woman’s belly while alive – removing her fetus and killing it. All those proportionate measures are taken with kind regard to mankinds desire for equall rights.
I am so weary of religion being used as yet another proxy for resource grabs: power, land, water and other assets. We peons are led to the slaughter, and those manipulating from the top are taking full advantage of and amplifying our hardwired mistrust of “others”. This has always been our worst weakness and will ultimately be our downfall as a species. The planet won’t care; it will be a figurative “Good Riddance”.