Marl Karx

Typos increase 300% after 8pm.

[𝙎👼🏻 @SZade15]

West Bank just got locked down, four days before Israeli elections. Hundreds of checkpoints and gates are now shut. Almost 3.5 million Palestinians are stranded right now. This is collective punishment of an entire population under military occupation.

[NewsCord @newscord_org]

The reality of the "independent" review telling every school in England to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism: its author, Sir David Bell, was being paid by a government agency while he wrote it, and a pro-Israel charity has listed him on its council for ten years.

The government told the public he was "independent of Government" and had "no conflict of interest". Neither is true.

What we found:

- Bell was paid £20,000 a year as vice-chair of Skills England, a government agency, in a seat the Department for Education gave him. He held it until August, through most of the review.

- The Academic Study Group on Israel and the Middle East has listed him on its council since at least 2016. Its website says its one firm policy is opposing boycotts of Israel. It gives talks on Israel in schools, which is exactly what his review was asked to judge.

- In 2005, as chief inspector of schools, he singled out Muslim schools as a challenge to "our coherence as a nation". The chairman of the Association of Muslim Schools called it Islamophobia, and his own inspectors said he had presented a personal view as inspection evidence.

Then we followed the money:

- The department's £1.3 million antisemitism training contract had one bidder, according to the tender record. It went to Palace Yard, a company set up in 2022 by the former Labour MP Natascha Engel.

- That contract says all its training must use the IHRA definition "as a foundation". It was signed eight months before Bell was appointed. His review then recommended IHRA.

- Two of the people who advised Bell, from Partnerships for Jewish Schools and the Antisemitism Policy Trust, now sit on the group putting his recommendations into practice.

- The Union of Jewish Students, also on that group, holds a contract worth almost £1 million to train universities. Its own policies include "UJS to advocate for Israel within UK Policy and International Law".

- UK Lawyers for Israel* (UKLFI) and the Campaign Against Antisemitism* (CAA) both say the review adopted their recommendations.

*For context, UKLFI once justified the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli occupation as "good for obesity". Both these groups have staunchly defended Israel throughout its perpetration of a genocide in Gaza, and regularly conflate Jewish people with the apartheid state.

This matters because the review decides how every school treats what pupils and teachers say about Israel, and the IHRA definition it recommends treats some criticism of Israel as antisemitic. A review with that power should come from someone with no pay from government and no tie to a pro-Israel charity. Bell had both. The government put one in a footnote and left the other out.

We mapped every link, each with its source, explaining just how far this review is from "independent": https://t.co/bPsbRjZNaN

[Chris Corney @ChrisCorney1]

You might think that founding the NHS would class you as a friend to the British people.

But British security services treated Nye Bevan as an enemy.

Please remember this next time you are being fed crap by MI5 on your telly. They are not on our side.

[Flying_Rodent @flying_rodent]

Forget Iran for now: he means they’re strangling 11 million civilians because toppling their government would make him personally look good.

[Chris Nineham @ChrisNineham]

Omg! A militant working class voice on Question Time. Look at Stephanie Flanders reaction. Speaks volumes.

[Hamza Yusuf @Hamza_a96]

Palestinians cant resist a siege, blockade and genocide in Gaza or occupation and land theft in the West Bank. But Israel always has the right to defend itself apparently.

[Claudia Webbe @ClaudiaWebbe]

In 1936 Jeremy Corbyn’s mother stood at Cable Street against Oswald Mosley, and in 2026 Oswald Mosley’s grandson, now Palantir’s UK boss, wrote to her son about his speeches in Parliament.

[Marl Karx @BareLeft]

@lorintbc Extraordinarily based.

[Omar Baddar عمر بدّار @OmarBaddar]

This is universally considered occupied Palestinian territory where the Israeli army's presence is illegal under international law.

Just imagine if a foreign military came to your town today and threw you out of your own home. This is what you're watching happen to Palestinians.

[Greens4Palestine @Greens4P]

The report had nothing to do with protecting schools and everything to do with protecting Zionism.

The Board of Deputies has relentlessly ran cover for the genocide in Gaza and Zionist settler colonialism.

This hysterical misinformation won’t work anymore.

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

🇺🇦: Resist Occupation 🇵🇸: Gunmen Fire On

The difference is by design.

[The National @ScotNational]

EXCLUSIVE: A Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign delegation is trapped in a 'strangulating' lockdown in the West Bank

The group have been cut off after Israel said it instructed security forces to immediately cordon off the city of Hebron and prepare to fully close all of the West Bank, starting on Friday

[Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs]

We should be seriously reassessing our views of the quality and limits of British democracy in the twentieth century given what we now know about the extent of state surveillance of the left and the labour movement.

[Jon Wiltshire @JonWiltshire_]

I'm not going to name the school, but the @BBC's coverage of the antisemitism in schools report featured interviews with children from a Jewish school.

Here's the rub, though.

The school's own published curriculum explicitly teaches Zionism, celebrates the establishment of Israel and describes preparing pupils to become "positive advocates for Israel" at university.

It even references bringing in organisations such as StandWithUs to prepare pupils for that advocacy.

Now, let me be absolutely clear. There is nothing wrong with teaching Jewish history, culture or identity. And antisemitism must be challenged wherever it exists.

But when children are actively encouraged to advocate for a particular state, rather than critically examine its history, policies and actions, surely we have to question whether this is education or ideological conditioning?

And here's the staggering hypocrisy.

We're being told that schools must exercise political impartiality when discussing Palestine, while a school can openly describe preparing children to advocate for Israel.

Political impartiality cannot be a principle applied selectively, depending on which side of a conflict children are encouraged to support.

And the BBC has a responsibility to scrutinise that distinction, not simply present children's views without examining the educational environment in which those views have developed.

Children deserve an education that teaches them how to think, not what to think.

@NEUnion @educationgovuk

[Marl Karx @BareLeft]

It's not just that he's racist, but that he's clearly proud of it.

[Zeteo UK @zeteouk]

“Have you spoken to any Palestinian organizations before you wrote your letter?”

@ShehabKhan presses Labour MP Mike Tapp who reported the Green Party over its Zionism motion about whether he’s ever spoken to any Palestinians.

Tapp: “I don’t know any Palestinian people.”

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

What this headline doesn’t tell you is that they were Israeli soldiers illegally occupying the West Bank.

It’s not an accident.

[Nad @NadimHCr]

Headline: "3 in 5 Jewish students face antisemitism in schools" (Bell Review).

​The actual numbers behind that claim:
​• Total sample: 5,000+ students surveyed
• Jewish students in the sample: 92
• Answered the question: 70
• Personally experienced it: 29

​To reach "3 in 5" (~59%), the review combined those 29 with ~12 who said they had only witnessed it (41/70).

​That is why critics cite 29: a sweeping national headline and policy push rests on personal reports from fewer than 30 respondents in an unweighted self-selected sample.

[Willibee 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @Willibee64]

Barbaric monsters. If this were Iran or Afghanistan half our liberal class would call for bombings

[Marl Karx @BareLeft]

@Billthegreat6 @BBCPolitics @BBCBreakfast They're high because they're set by the marginal price of gas.

[Zack Polanski @ZackPolanski]

Basic education piece:

Not all Jewish people are Zionists.

Lots of Zionists aren't Jews.

The Board of Deputies largely self identity as Zionists.

The Media often report the Board of Deputies as the opinion of Jewish people.

Yet many Jewish people say #NotInOurName