Beth Saffer

Head of Older People Programmes for @WJRelief. Follow Ukraine, disability & dementia, human rights & former Soviet Union. Views are my own.

[Arsen Ostrovsky @Ostrov_A]

One of the most extraordinary and powerful speeches I have seen today, on the occasion of 1 year since the #October7Massacre, was made by Canadian MP @MelissaLantsman! Please watch.

[Natalka @NatalkaKyiv]

“It’s a Ukrainian city. Why does it need to be ‘liberated’ from Ukrainians?

I would even like to ask Putin this question.

It's a war. It's not ‘SMO’.”

Residents of the Kursk oblast are finally starting to ask the right questions.

Video: Ёшкин Крот

[Lishay Miran-Lavi @LishayLM]

1 year since we've hugged you.

1 year since we've kissed your face.

1 year since we've held your hand.

1 year since we've heard your laugh.

We continue to fight for you every single day. We need you home. We love you forever and always. Bring them home! 🎗️

[Noa Tishby @noatishby]

The antisemitism that was festering under the surface for decades, has exploded. And for those of us who stand against it, we are not the popular kids. The so called “cool kids” are wearing a keffiyeh, calling for an intifada and demanding a Palestine between the river and the sea even if they can’t tell you which river or which sea. Keffiyeh Karens. That’s the mainstream now.

Standing up against jihadism is now the counter-culture. Standing up for western democratic values against terror and extremism: that is now the counter-culture. Using facts and reason and knowing history: that is now the counter-culture. People! WE are the counterculture.

And we are doing it. The Jewish people have found our voice because standing up for what we believe in, even when it’s not popular, is part of who we are. Our tiny people haven’t survived for millennia and outlived every empire that tried to destroy us by always being the cool kids. In fact, we almost never are. We know when it’s time to swim against the tide because we know this playbook. We have been here before.

And our message to the world is as follows: the hatred that targets is targeting you too.

I have a question for you, keffiyeh Karen from campus: where would you prefer to be a woman? in Iran? In Afghanistan? or in Israel? We cannot take the freedoms that we enjoy here in the US in Israel and in the west for granted, and right now even saying just that is swimming against the tide – it is being the counterculture.  

This is not a war of Israel’s choosing but we cannot avoid it either. They might call us the chosen people: in fact we are the people with no choice.

But the entire western world needs to wake up to the fact that it has no choice either: that what is at stake is the survival, not just of the Jewish people, but of Western civilization, democracy and freedom itself.

And where we do have a choice is in how we do it: and we choose to speak the truth, even when the truth isn’t popular. To speak up, even when we are shouted down and to be proud even when they tell us we better hide.

Thank you so much, am Israel chai

[Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof]

Kharkiv. Not Beirut. Happens almost daily. Not making news anymore.

[Heidi Bachram @HeidiBachram]

Sometimes I catch myself in total disbelief that there is a British woman hostage in Gaza and our government isn’t screaming about her. Like Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe the British establishment seems utterly unable to protect its citizens. Or unwilling.

[Khaled Hassan @Khaledhzakariah]

The British and Europeans shut down Russia Today over impartiality and disinformation....amazing, well done.

Jews shut down Al Jazeera over exactly the same reasons....oh bad, bad Jews.

The British carpet bomb Germany to defeat the Nazis....amazing, let's celebrate our heroes every single day and set up memorials in every single town in Britain.

Jews fight for survival when facing a 7-front war after even babies were taken hostages...oh, bad, bad Jews.

British intelligence and police round up foreigners ahead of and during World War 1 and World War 2...amazing, we needed to make sure there were no spies or saboteurs.

Jews build a wall after terrorists committed suicide attacks targeting cafes, restaurants, school buses, etc...oh, bad, bad Jews with their apartheid.

US, UK, NATO and others accused of raping detainees, mistakenly targeting civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and other locations....it's okay, just isolated cases and a mistake.

Jews literally warn the civilian populations ahead of airstrikes, ask them to relocate, and beg the world to help us release our babies who are taken hostage in exchange for an end to the war...oh, bad, bad Jews committing genocide.

Senior Muslim clerics literally calling for the ethnic cleansing of Jews, referring to us as pigs and apes....the UK government turns a blind eye, maintains relations with those clerics and offers them the red carpet when they are visiting and does not even comment on the risk of Muslim extremism.

Jews making fun of Hezbollah, the group who openly says it will exterminate Jews, when they are being humiliated by the most creative intelligence officers in the history of intelligence.....oh, bad, bad Jews celebrating indiscriminate killing.

You see, all this is nothing but antisemitism. We are held to standards that are very simply not applicable to any other group of humans....Not the Arabs, not the Europeans, not the Americans, not the Christians, not the Muslims, not the Chinese, not the Russians.....

You think you can't allow Russian Today to vomit its venom and disinformation in Britain, against you and your people.....but we Jews are expected to enable a broadcaster that openly celebrates when our babies are taken hostage????!!

Let me tell you something. You can shove your comments, concerns, views, condemnation, bla bla bla where the sun doesn't shine.

I would rather die, have my corpse cut into tiny little pieces and thrown to stray dogs than live as an inferior being, doing what the Brits, Americans, Europeans, expect of me. I would rather die a thousand times than accept that you have the right to ban a broadcaster which does you harm while Jews are asked not to do the same thing YOU DID OVER THE SAME BLOODY REASONS.

Oh, by the way, as long as this government is ruling Britain, I am proud of being British. Quite the opposite. I am ashamed and appalled.

[Beth Saffer @BRSaffer]

@AvantiWestCoast very hot in carriage B on the 9.44 train to London from Manchester. Can this be adjusted?

[Tatsiana Khomich @TatsianaKhomich]

🆘 We don’t have much time left to save Maria’s life!

🚨 We must act now to get Maria out of prison and ensure she receives the urgent medical attention she desperately needs.

[Lee Harris @LeeHarris]

'The people who say this was indiscriminate seem not to have noticed that if you have a Hezbollah pager on you, the chances are you may well be a member of Hezbollah.... therefore you are not innocent'

This is utterly superb from @DouglasKMurray 🔥

[Dr. Maalouf ‏ @realMaalouf]

One of the Hezbollah terrorists killed in the pager explosions was married to an 8-year-old girl. I’m speechless.

[Oli London @OliLondonTV]

Thousands of Israelis gather outside the family home of Hersh Goldberg-Polin and sing, in an effort to comfort his bereaved parents. 🇮🇱

[Beth Saffer @BRSaffer]

@CocaCola_GB Have tried sending a DM

[Beth Saffer @BRSaffer]

@CocaCola_GB my husband has been trying to find the green Beetlejuice fanta, looked in over 20 stores in Manchester! Any clue?

[Saint Javelin @saintjavelin]

LET. UKRAINE. STRIKE. BACK!

[Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis @chiefrabbi]

It beggars belief that the British government, a close strategic ally of Israel, has announced a partial suspension of arms licences, at a time when Israel is fighting a war for its very survival on seven fronts forced upon it on the 7th October, and at the very moment when six hostages murdered in cold blood by cruel terrorists were being buried by their families. As Israel faces down the threat of Iran and its proxies, not just to its own people, but to all of us in the democratic west; this announcement feeds the falsehood that Israel is in breach of International Humanitarian Law, when in fact it is going to extraordinary lengths to uphold it. Sadly, this announcement will serve to encourage our shared enemies. It will not help to secure the release of the remaining 101 hostages, nor contribute to the peaceful future we wish and pray for, for all people in the region and beyond.
Britain and Israel have so much to gain by standing together against our common enemies for the sake of a safer world. Surely that must be the way forward.

[Aviva Klompas @AvivaKlompas]

Not a word from Amnesty International

Not a word from Human Rights Watch

Not a word from the Red Cross

They call themselves human rights organizations, but they never fought for the lives of these Israelis and can’t even be bothered to mourn their deaths.

[Beth Saffer @BRSaffer]

@IcelandFoods where can we find the green Beetlejuice fanta, tried so many shops! Thanks

[Jay in Kyiv @JayinKyiv]

Russians are randomly firing North Korean and Russian ballistic missiles into heavily populated areas of Kharkiv this afternoon.

There are 60 victims many are children as a sport complex was targeted.