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
So in a nutshell: The Bell Review DID NOT find Jewish schoolchildren in Britain face rampant antisemitism.
But because the news organisations were briefed with that as the top line, mainstream media ran with it.
They WON’T correct the story - because that would make them look stupid.
Journalism - dead.
🇫🇷 French police have left protesters with injuries that human rights lawyers told outlets compare to those seen in conflict zones, as a student uprising over crumbling schools and the cost of living enters its fifth week.
Over Saturday and Sunday alone, French outlets StreetPress, Index and ViolencesPolicières(dot)fr collected several hundred videos and testimonies. Cases they documented include:
🔸 A 17-year-old in Saint-Étienne whose hand was torn off by a police grenade
🔸 A 17-year-old girl in Mulhouse who lost the sight in her left eye after being hit by a tear gas grenade
🔸 Protesters in Paris, Lyon, Strasbourg and Besançon beaten with batons and kicked while on the ground, including one held in a chokehold
France's police watchdog has opened at least 36 investigations into police violence against high school protesters. Christophe Calvao, president of the Paris Young Lawyers' Union, denounced "an increasingly systematic use of crowd-control measures that would normally be reserved for much more serious situations."
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has said police "must be able to use all intermediate weapons," and on Tuesday vowed to "step up" for the next mobilization. France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said his party and unions know how to keep marches peaceful by deploying hundreds of volunteers, adding: "We could at least expect police to do something other than fire indiscriminately into the crowd."
Melenchon also noted that most European countries ban such grenades, and that Nuñez suspended them only to reinstate them "not even 48 hours" later.
🎥 Edited by @samivanderlip. (Compilation of videos circulating online).
You are witnessing a western government’s fascist domestic army attack its civilian population.
The uprising against the elite ruining this world is coming.
Face à la résistance populaire persistante, la police a lancé une offensive intense pour disperser les manifestants.
Face à la résistance populaire persistante, la police a lancé une offensive intense pour disperser les manifestants.
#17octobre2026#manifestation#paris#Franc #BlocusLycées
New @RebellionPac ad dropping in Michigan. We have to suffer here at home, so Israel can get all its wars. That’s why they buy politicians like Mike Rogers. He promised to serve Israel “unconditionally,” but never made that promise to you.
#OnThisDay in 2022
A ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ performance away at Wolves
Four shots
Four goals
⚽️ Tielemans
⚽️ Barnes
⚽️ Maddison
⚽️ Vardy
The celebration from Vardy at the end 🥹
The government's antisemitism in schools report is a travesty.
It's riddled with errors, distortions and contradictions.
And it will be used to silence people over Palestine 👇
https://t.co/ryc1lrCWQp
Around 3% of Muslim children attend full-time Islamic schools. Roughly 70% of Jewish children attend Jewish schools.
Yet only Muslims are constantly lectured about “integration”.
Funny that.
29 students.
That's the total number of Jewish students in the Bell report who said they've experienced antisemitism.
29.
Meanwhile, 30 Palestinians have been reported murdered by Israel in the past 10 days.
9 million students in the UK
50k are Jewish
37k go to Jewish only schools
We are all being fucked over to avoid the delicate sensitivities of a few thousand people because ISRAEL IS COMMITTING GENOCIDE IN PALESTINE.
What the hell is happening here?