Ein Mah la’asot.
A rather pathetic lot of mohammedans have tried to hack the littlezionist. Had they managed it, they would have made an important strike at the heart of the zionist entity, a resounding victory in their holy war against the oppressors and the infidels.
These people … what can you do?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5019980
In a letter to parents, Ms Healey [headteacher] said: “It has been important to Birches Head High School that all students and staff have a pride in their school, community, city and country.
“Although our policy has been to not allow non-school badges and discourage flags unless in relation to learning, we are changing this policy due to it being seen as not supporting the World Cup rather than being in relation to behaviour and uniform.”
She added: “The World Cup is perceived in this school as a learning opportunity to support the development of citizenship education.”
I sent this to a friend and this is what he said: It is appalling: not just the grammar (which is disgraceful), but also the content. Horrible English usage, and horrible ‘educationalism’. I can’t say “to not allow” without grimacing. Although I believe that some split infinitives are absolutely fine and sometimes necessary for correct sense. Hers is disgusting and completely unnecessary.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. It is disturbing that an illiterate is responsible for the education of several hundred children. I may email this awful woman if I can find her address.
In case anyone had doubted the quality of Israeli pop … www.israelimusictv.com
The Yeshiva Boys’ Choir (under the pop section) are very cute.
“The reason behind this cycle is the continuation of the occupation and by the continued Israeli assaults against our Palestinian people”
“We say that ending this cycle and achieving stability, security and calm in this region is dependent on ending the occupation and the achievement by our people of their full rights.”
- Ismail Haniya
Could have come from any one of the righteous SWP types or foolish members of the great British public. Glad he got the solid ‘cycle of violence’ idea in too. With any luck those who still believe Hamas will become lovely moderates will start being sensible. I wonder how many will believe, or will go around repeating, the above sentiment. I will perhaps do a brief and depressing survey of my fellow undergraduates as they return in the next few days.
Yesterday I edited a Wikipedia article for the first time. I looked up Melanie Phillips, thinking that I could remove anything nasty and untrue put up by Melaniephillipswatch types. I’d had a conversation in that glorious Cambridge establishment The Maypole a week or so ago about the Phillips article, and it was mentioned that Phillips’ Jewishness had been emphasised rather too much. The friend who mentioned this to me said he had removed ‘Of [[Jewish]] descent’ as he thought the information to be of spurious relevance. So when I looked up Mad Mel yesterday, this phrase had reappeared as the first sentence in the ‘Education and career as a journalist’ section - before the actually relevant information that she ‘read English at St Anne’s, Oxford, before training as a journalist on the Evening Echo’ etc. etc.
Someone obviously thinks that the information is so important, and relevant to MP’s education and journalistic career, that they have reinserted the same phrase several times - I’m currently on my second edit of the page.
I also removed ‘and Puritanical’ from the bulletpoint - She is socially conservative (to be found under Poltical Views). And added this sentence and link ‘Melanie Phillips offers a cogent argument that the ‘liberal’ left that regards her as essentially right-wing and illiberal has been perverted, and has come to represent libertarian rather than truly liberal thinking. In this important article Phillips declares that she is a ‘progressive’ and defender of liberal democracy. The article is available here.’
Alan Dershowitz is speaking at SOAS on Wednesday the 8th as part of his European Tour for Democracy II, Zionism is not Racism: The Case for Israel.
All the details are here
Since this story remains bizzarely underreported, here is a link for anyone who is silly enough not to read Melanie Phillips
BBC - Mayor is suspended over Nazi jibe
Funny how these little fascists always seem to align themselves with ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom of speech’ these days. Ken Livingstone reckons that the decision to suspend him from office for four weeks “strikes at the heart of democracy.” It wasn’t Livingstone’s comparison of a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard, but his refusal to see anything wrong with the remark, that landed him the four week suspension. He stands by his comment, claiming that “he was expressing his honestly-held political view of Associated Newspapers, but he had not meant to offend the Jewish community.” This seems rather odd to me. I know the horror of the Holocaust is being eroded daily by abusive comparisons to Israelis, and the hijacking of Holocaust memorial day etc. etc. etc., but surely it has not been so stripped of meaning that comparisons with Evening Standard journalists are now seen as legitimate and “honest”.
As David Irving is tried, convicted and sentenced, European libertarians cry out in outrage and horror as Muslims in the Arab world and in Europe use violence to try to control what can be published in Europe. Others exclaim at the perceived irony; the ‘left’ laud freedom of speech as a pure and transcendent value, an inherent right enshrined in our liberal democracies, and at the same time, Irving is incarcerated for making (what they admit to be repugnant) speeches.
Although to some, the timing of this aptly exposes Europe’s hypocrisy, surely we must be a little more careful in comparing the two ‘crimes’ in question. The Jyllands-Posten cartoonists satirised the abuse and politicisation of Islam. Their depiction of the prophet has caused great offence and hurt to some Muslims. However, the cartoonists trained their sights on what is undoubtedly a legitimate target; in fashioning itself into a political force, Islamic fundamentalism must accept that it will become the subject of political satire - and of polemic and rational criticism. Political Islam has no right to demand the reverence and protection from satire and abuse that some may feel should be offered to religion. The greatest irony in my eyes is not Europe’s ‘double standards’, but the fact that the hurt and offence generated by the cartoons has been augmented and manipulated; it, too, has been politicised and used to attack western goverments - to deepen the alienation felt by European Muslims, to increase the antipathy felt by many in the Arab world, and as part of an assault on western democratic values.
On whether the the Holocaust is a ‘legitimate target’, I am incredibly uneasy. This is the most horrific event in our history. It is fact. And it is still scarred deeply into the psyches of its survivors, as well into the collective psyche of the people it tried to exterminate. I am in theory opposed to any state-imposed limits on freedom of expression, but my disgust at David Irving’s views - at the fact that he shamelessly and thoughtlessly tells the survivors of Hitler’s concentration camps that they are liars - makes me wish he could be locked up forever, or at least until he finds some compassion for those whose horrific memories he desecrates. But I will try to keep my response more rational.
Although I feel repulsed by Irving and his views, I cannot escape the knowledge that every historical event is a legitimate target of debate. I am no libertarian, to be sure; I believe, like any rational human being, that personal freedom does not only entail, but is made possible by social responsibilites, and I know that in order to grant each person the greatest possible measure of his rights and freedoms, some of these responsibilities must be imposed by the state. However, it is futile for the state to resist these antisemites with laws that can be used against us. It is not up to the state to impose resposibilities in this case, because in doing so they must impose seemingly hypocritical laws that leave our society open to attack by fundamentalist Islam, and leave history open to attack by those whose intransigence could lead to events that we must debate becoming taboo. The responsibility for responding to people like Irving - to those who try to legitimate antisemitism - falls squarely with us - with rational individuals. Rational people must drown Irving’s views in a tide of information and debate, rather than allow this repugnant, right-wing racist to be defended in the name of free speech.
To a true libertarian, personal freedom is the standard by which society is judged. Perhaps a better way of seeing things is that the better a society functions, the more freedom it is able to grant to its citizens. If we take our responsibilities seriously on this matter, then Europe’s goverments will not feel such great need to promulgate laws which are obliquely harmful, in order to impose social resposibilities that the individual should willingly shoulder.