Latest news with #Israelophobic
Spectator
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Thom Yorke has exposed the intolerance of the ‘pro-Palestine' set
Thom Yorke has done us all a great service by exposing how unhinged, intolerant and, frankly, bigoted much of the supposedly 'pro-Palestine' set is. The Radiohead frontman and bandmate Jonny Greenwood have for years now been locked in a bitter beef with Israelophobic fans and fellow musicians, due to their dogged refusal to treat Israelis like moral lepers and insistence on still playing to – and with – them. In 2017, Radiohead ploughed ahead with a big tour show in Tel Aviv, despite outrage from all the usual suspects. Roger Waters even called Yorke a 'prick', which I suppose would only really sting if you subscribed to the old adage 'it takes one to know one'. Yorke's perfectly rational, liberal argument – 'we don't endorse Netanyahu any more than Trump, but we still play in America' – fell on deaf ears among those who see Israelis as uniquely, collectively, responsible for the actions of their political leaders. He walked
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
When it comes to Gaza, Trump is all mouth and no trousers
Remember Donald Trump's vow that there would be 'all hell to pay' if Hamas hadn't released all the hostages by the time he took office? What happened to that? Four months later and for all his tough talk, the president is slumping into a Biden crouch. His envoy, Steve Witkoff, is poised to unveil a revised Israel-Hamas ceasefire proposal amid optimistic leaks, mainly from sources in the United States, that a larger deal may be in the offing. This will likely entail the phased release of ten hostages out of the 20 presumed still living, as well as the remains of a further 18. This will leave the jihadis in control of ten living hostages and 20 bodies, which in their depraved eyes amounts to a pretty significant hand of playing cards to keep. In return, Israel may release 125 notorious murderers with much innocent blood on their hands, not to mention military experience and an undimmed fanaticism in their souls, as well as 1,111 prisoners captured after October 7 and the remains of 180 terrorists killed in battle. The latter is an unusual demand to be emphasised by Hamas, which appears to be mimicking Jewish veneration of the dead. Aid will also be ramped up. All this will be arranged around a 60-day pause in fighting. The White House seems confident that it has reassured Israel that either the campaign or further hostage negotiations, or both, may be recommenced if the deadline passes with no progress in talks for a final end to hostilities. Israel has reportedly indicated it will accept. So far, so Joe Biden. For those Trump supporters who were looking forward to seeing Hamas blasted to kingdom come as soon as his feet hit the Oval carpet, it all looks rather flaccid. What happened to his cherished Riviera? Just like during the Biden era, we have even witnessed an extraordinary propaganda campaign waged by Hamas, the United Nations, a range of NGOs and the international media to obstruct a joint Israeli-American attempt to create a means of delivering aid directly to the people of Gaza while bypassing their jihadi overlords. As Israel has looked in danger of winning, the disinformation has hit fever pitch. Gaza, we have been told, is on the verge of famine, which quickly elides into claims of an actual famine, despite no evidence of deaths of starvation and plentiful videos on social media of reasonable conditions in the Strip. This has been accompanied by a plethora of fabricated, exaggerated or just plain fishy claims made by Hamas and magnified by a venomously Israelophobic elite and their radical progressive allies. The arts world swung into action. R&B musicians 'spoke out' and almost 400 novelists signed a letter pledging to brand Israel's campaign 'genocide'. Odd kind of genocide when the aggressor warns civilians before it attacks, fails for two-and-a-half years to complete the supposed crime despite having the firepower to do so in two-and-a-half hours, and goes out of its way to deliver aid. If anybody had been paying attention, they would have observed that Israel had been accused of 'genocide' in earnest since October 8, and in general for many decades before that. The fact that the job of a novelist is literally to make up stories was apparently lost upon them. The disinformation has been as transparent as it has been ubiquitous. Yet following in the footsteps of Joe Biden before him, Trump failed to condemn this wave of lies, instead dignifying it by adding the claim of his own that 'a lot of people are starving' while hanging out with a bunch of Arab leaders. It doesn't stop there. We had high hopes that Iran would finally meet some serious opposition when the Donald returned to office. After all, this was the man who had authorised the killing of the totemic Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani, king of overseas meddling, in 2020. Yet just as the time is ripe for denuclearising Iran by way of bunker busters – Tehran's air defences were taken out by Israel last year and Hezbollah has been decapitated and castrated – Trump seems to be bottling it. The President publicly confirmed that he had asked Benjamin Netanyahu not to launch an attack while he was negotiating with the Ayatollah, amid days of speculation about a tense telephone call between the two men and American assessments that Israel may be preparing a strike of its own. Jerusalem is deeply concerned that an impending Trump-Khamenei deal would take the threat of an assault by the United States off the table, while leaving Iran in a holding pattern that would allow the Ayatollah to advance his nuclear programme again when he's good and ready. There are also serious worries about an interim deal that would offer Iran sanctions relief before a nuclear accord is reached, hosing billions of dollars into its coffers that may be used to rebuild Hezbollah and its other devastated assets. This would allow the Iranians breathing space to do what they do best: drag on the talks while pushing their agenda forward, quietly but steadily. We have even seen growing reports of friction between Trump and Netanyahu, which is beginning to look rather like the 'daylight' famously placed by Biden between the United States and its beleaguered ally. It's all a far cry from the berserker rhetoric that Trump so loudly trumpeted before he took office. Has he been mugged by reality? Or is the 47th president all mouth and no trousers? Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Desperate Starmer is in retreat, and scorching everything in his wake
Like a retreating horde of marauders determined to bequeath a wasteland to the liberators, Labour is resorting to the vilest of scorched earth tactics. The more his popularity collapses, the less Sir Keir Starmer has to lose, and the more dangerous he becomes in his desperation to force through progressive shibboleths. His Government's frenetic intensity is terrifying. No British institution is too sacred to be torched, no treasure too precious to be pillaged, no well too deep to be poisoned, no boobytrap too immoral to be deployed. The Prime Minister has casually turned Britain back into a vassal-state of the EU, giving up control over our laws, borders and money for nothing meaningful in return. This was a historic surrender, a monstrous betrayal of the spirit of his manifesto, and yet he has already moved on. Having precipitated the liquidation of many family farms, schools, pubs and businesses, Labour is now targeting what is left of our fishing industry for termination. The Prime Minister announced a partial U-turn on winter fuel payments for pensioners, but this will be weaponised to justify more tax rises. Britain already resembles a scene from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, with over-taxed wealth creators downing tools, pulling investments and rushing to the exits. The public's fury when it connects Starmer's obscene ex gratia payments to the EU – since when does a country pay another to be allowed to trade with it and defend it? – with the next batch of tax increases will be something to behold. To add to this week's desolation, criminals will be let out after serving a third of their sentences, while the authorities ignore rampant shoplifting, grant asylum to numerous criminals and crack down on free speech. Our foreign policy is becoming equally nihilistic: first, we pay for the privilege of handing over Chagos, one of our last territories; and now, courtesy of David Lammy, we turn against Israel, insulting its ambassador, dropping our trade negotiations, ordering the Jewish state not to finish off the terrorists in Gaza and earning the plaudits of Hamas. It's disgusting, and for what? A few votes from the Israelophobic contingent? What is left of our dignity is being sacrificed for the most fleeting of political gain by Starmer's desperados. Just 14 per cent of voters approve of this Government, against 64 per cent disapproving; it is polling at 22 per cent, against 29 per cent for Reform, YouGov says. Starmer is haemorrhaging votes to the Lib Dems (third on 17 per cent, just five points behind), the Greens and the anti-Israel independents. He is pulling out all the stops, hence his sudden rhetoric about immigration turning us into 'a nation of strangers' and his about-turn on winter fuel. Labour is terrible at regicide, but activists have noticed how replacing the hated Justin Trudeau by Mark Carney helped save the Canadian Left. Starmer is rushing through policies he genuinely believes in, such as reversing Brexit; he wants to be remembered as a progressive hero, not as Labour's last, or even penultimate, PM. He is also seeking to redeem himself with erstwhile members of the Labour coalition, from the urban precariat to public sector workers, from Rejoiners to the Northern working class. Starmer's pensioners climbdown signals to younger voters that Labour isn't the 'nasty party' and doesn't believe in 'austerity'. Many on the Right hated Rachel Reeves' assault on pensioner benefits (unusually, I supported a version of her policy), but her U-turn is a victory for the Left: the pressure will mount to reverse 'cuts' (read: slower growth) to Personal Independence Payments, and to reduce the deficit exclusively by putting up tax. Not content with the surge in inflation to 3.5 per cent, Angela Rayner has pushed a plan to expand inheritance tax, cap pension pots, hit more people with the 45 per cent tax rate and conspire to pauperise the middle class and cut off their last routes to self-reliance. Reeves is stuck: Labour's client groups are demanding pay rises and handouts, but the economy is past the peak of the Laffer curve. Yet Rayner is winning; her platform will surely be eventually entirely implemented, paradoxically fuelling the fiscal doom-loop. Starmer is more interested in courting students, touring musicians and those who fly to Tuscany many times a year. Past EU betrayals were dressed up as triumphs of compromise and skilled negotiation. The UK would walk out in pretend fury at the eleventh hour, and claim to have won key opt-outs or major concessions (in truth, the direction of travel was always bad, it was just the speed that varied). Each time we gave up a veto, Europhiles concocted a narrative that democratic accountability would be maintained, pointing to the European Parliament or council of ministers. Edward Heath, John Major, Tony Blair, David Cameron: all played that game, but not Starmer. There was no theatre, no attempt at hiding the fact that he is selling Britain down the river, no apology for signing up to shockingly undemocratic 'dynamic alignment', forcing us to apply whatever laws the EU decides in a range of areas, including in food standards. We are handing extensive control over energy markets and net zero to Brussels, and Starmer has agreed to a poison pill in the shape of trade sanctions if we ever pull out. The next step will be a 'youth experience' mobility scheme (30 year olds are hardly children) to allow at least 100,000 migrants to enter the UK. Many will work in social care, exposing as bogus the Government's pledge to end our reliance on cheap overseas labour. Starmer, a fanatical Remainer, is openly rubbing Brexiteers' noses in it. It is in Labour's DNA to find enemies and persecute them. Private school enrolment is down 13,000 already, four times more than predicted by Labour, but that was always the real reason to slap Vat on parents. Groups that are 'Right-coded' in the far-Left playbook, including farmers, retired constables posting on X, country dwellers, suburban car drivers and middle aged savers are fair game. There have been tactical retreats, such as on trans extremism. But with their backs against the wall, Starmer's army of Leftist radicals are going for broke. Poor Britain: there soon won't be much left to save. 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