londonerforpeace

london, active travel, libraries

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

12 June 1929 | A German Jewish girl, Anne Frank, was born in Frankfurt.

In 1942 on her 13th birthday she received an empty diary. She perished in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945.

'Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character & goodness.' (A.Frank)

[Laura Trott MP @LauraTrottMP]

Antisemitism is becoming frighteningly endemic in our universities. This week I met with two students who have experienced it first hand and it is worth dwelling on their stories because they are shocking.

Bradley Smart is an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge. After visiting Israel, fellow students said they wanted to kill him. No disciplinary action was taken.

Merit Habib Matta spoke about the casual antisemitism she has encountered at Oxford University. In a lecture she attended, the first sentence was:

“The Zionist occupation of Palestine…”

A classmate said that “The Nazis expansion into Europe was at least the same continent, how could the Jews justify moving to a place so far away?”

These comments were made as statements of fact, without challenge or consequence.

How we respond to this is test of the kind of country we are.

Universities that do not take antisemitism seriously should face serious consequences. There must be real accountability. Without it, we will never stamp this vile hatred out.

Thank you to the @PinskerCentre for arranging and all they are doing.

[Rich Toronto @rich_toronto]

I am a Zionist. Many people out there don’t seem to understand what a Zionist is - and what it isn’t - so here you go.

I believe in the existence of a Jewish home land, Israel, in the land of Judea, where it currently is.

As a Zionist, I do not automatically agree with or support everything the country does, nor do I automatically agree with every government, every politician, every decision.

As a Zionist, I am free to criticize policies and governments of Israel, just the same as I am to criticize the Canadian government or the American government or any other government.

I can believe that the Israelis who spit on Christians should be charged, and I do.

I can believe that the violence in Judea and Samaria needs to be stopped, and I do.

I can believe that every single Israeli, regardless of religion, who commits rape, should be tried and should face the harshest punishments, and I do.

I can believe that every single war crime committed by an Israeli should be prosecuted, and I do.

I can believe that Israel should be held to the same standards of every other nation, and I do.

The only things I don’t do, because I’m a Zionist?

Call for the destruction of the only Jewish nation in the world.

Hold them to a far higher standard than everyone else, just because they’re Jewish.

Spread false propaganda about them, just because they’re Jewish.

Because even though you pretend that’s “antizionism”, it’s just masking your true motives.

Jew hatred.

[Stephen Pollard @stephenpollard]

For the Jew haters even working with Jews is enough to damn you

[Dr. Hans Jakob Schindler @CEPschindler]

I am not using my account here to comment on things often, but this news story needs a comment:
How is it possible that a professional European politician in 2026 does not see the very obvious historical parallels of supporting the idea of creating lists of Jews?

[Sarah Vine @WestminsterWAG]

Does he want them to wear yellow armbands too?

[Luai Ahmed @JustLuai]

In honor of Pride month, here’s a list of countries in the Middle East that recognize same sex marriage:

1. Israel

[Alfie House @AlfieHouseEcho]

Have to say, I’m not impressed by this statement. If you’ve got issues with panel, they should have been raised at time. I expect more to come in terms of communication, but yeah... would also like to know how club sent a misleading first response. Sure not deliberate.

#SaintsFC

[David Collier @mishtal]

Last week I was sent an image of a pro-Palestine stall at Cambridge Market Square.

Not angry students. Not masked radicals. Rather elderly white women encouraging strangers to boycott Israel.

So yesterday I went to Cambridge to hear what they were selling.

Thread ⬇️⬇️

[Ian Austin @LordIanAustin]

Last night PSG fans rioted during and after the Champions League final.

57 police officers were injured.
Cars and shops set alight.
One mob even tried to storm a police station.
Police arrested 780.
22,000 police were deployed.

Presumably, if they are drawn to play an English club in next year’s Champions League, all the people who claimed they wanted Maccabi Tel Aviv banned on grounds of public safety (and not because they were in fact a bunch of anti-Jewish racist obsessives), will be demanding the French fans are banned too?

[Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall]

The Soho Society is objecting to *every* new bar/restaurant licence in what is supposed to be the centre of London’s nightlife. More planning/licensing insanity.

I asked them to come on my Sunday LBC show: "We will absolutely not be taking questions from journalists". Of course not.

https://t.co/0UfHJs9Klg

[Rachel Moiselle @RachelMoiselle]

This is honestly something out of Life of Brian.

Ireland has just played a completely optional match against QATAR, a slave state that, in addition to its litany of human rights abuses, continues to bankroll Hamas and host its top leaders in luxury in Doha. These leaders are the architects of the October 7th massacre and are therefore directly responsible for the destruction of Gaza that followed.

Yet there is not a word of controversy or commentary about the current match at all. Instead we have protestors screeching about ‘Zionist’ blood money from the stands about a match with Israel in four months (!), and official commentators below legitimising such abject hypocritical lunacy on our state-funded national broadcaster.

I don’t even know where we, as a country, even go from here. There is such a profound disconnect between how this deranged, utterly sinister obsession is perceived nationally versus internationally, and that gap just continues to grow ever wider.

[Wes Streeting @wesstreeting]

The postponement of an event at the British Museum as part of the first Jewish Culture Month is simply unacceptable. So-called activists are attempting to rewrite history and target Jews. It is on all of us to push back now against anti-Jewish racism.

[Nimco Ali (OBE) @NimkoAli]

As a Black Muslim woman who has been targeted by people like him, I stand with the Jewish community against antisemitism. Men like this are the canary in the coal mine. When someone feels comfortable using racist language while abusing women, it shows how normalised hatred has become. It won’t stop with Jewish people. It never does.

[Boris Johnson @BorisJohnson]

What’s happening to our country when Dame Helen Mirren can be abused in the street?

https://t.co/OjdM0Oe8b8

[Zach זק @ZachLewis3187]

Know what’s so funny about Ireland? Their entire media made a football friendly about Qatar into a media circus about the match with Israel in about 4 months time.

Today, Ireland played a state that actually has slaves. Slaves built their stadiums, slaves died building those stadiums. The same country funds terrorism globally and yet, they had no words to say about Qatar. Qatar, where women can’t travel without male permission, a woman needs her fathers written permission to marry, women cannot check into a hotel alone, and their testimony in court is only that of a man.

But all that is fine since they aren’t Jews.

[Henshi @HenshiG]

Another voice from history has fallen silent. 🕊️

Eva Schloss, Auschwitz survivor, Holocaust educator, and tireless guardian of remembrance, has passed away at 96.

Born in Vienna, Eva fled with her family to Amsterdam, where they became neighbors and friends of the Frank family.

In 1944, betrayal led to their arrest and deportation to Auschwitz. There, amid unimaginable horror, she and her mother endured starvation, exhaustion, and brutality.

Her father and brother were murdered just days before liberation.

Devastated yet resolute, Eva refused to let the dead be forgotten. Instead of silencing her pain, she chose to speak—through books, lectures, and as co-founder of the Anne Frank Trust UK—ensuring future generations understood the consequences of hatred and indifference.

With her passing, we lose one of the last living witnesses to Auschwitz. As that generation fades, the responsibility to remember falls more heavily on us.

Eva carried unimaginable grief with extraordinary courage, not to dwell in the past, but to protect the future from repeating it.

Rest peacefully, Eva. After a lifetime bearing witness for humanity, may you now find the peace that was once stolen from you. 🕊️

[Tim Shipman @ShippersUnbound]

Further to Blair. Literally every honest sensible person in all the main parties privately agrees with all these propositions:

- welfare spending is too high and is throwing good people on the scrapheap
- defence spending is too low
- the triple lock is unsustainable
- without cheap energy we cannot exploit the AI revolution
- we should be investing in EVERY form of energy: renewables, nuclear and the North Sea
- migration needs to be controlled to boost social cohesion and because the boats look like a huge failure of the state
- any new relationship with the EU will be imposed on us until we are stronger and cannot involve the closeness some desire without freedom of movement
- we are deeply embedded with America in ways which the public does not understand and cannot be told and however joyous it makes us feel to hate Trump, disengagement at the deep state level is not only wholly unrealistic but also undesirable
- Whitehall needs a total overhaul so specific project expertise and political appointees can be brought in quickly

Blair basically says all that.

The one thing he doesn’t say and which the same group of people agree on is this and it’s something Blair left behind:

- judges and quangos have too much power, are unaccountable and without redressing the balance in favour of parliament it is very difficult to do anything big fast
- the bare minimum that needs to change in this regard is to reform judicial review and planning law so we can put building and economic growth ahead of newts and NIMBYs

None of that above really ought to be up for discussion. It is all common sense but not one of our politicians will publicly say all of it

Whatever you think of Blair, engage with what he’s saying not how he makes you feel. The bare minimum we should expect from any leader is that they have an analysis of the current situation and a plan to deal with it which is as coherent and realistic as his intervention. Pretty well every critique I’ve read so far has failed to meet this requirement.

Over to Andy and Keir and Kemi and Nigel and Zack and all the others

[Hen Mazzig @HenMazzig]

UPDATE: Following public outcry and pressure, The British Museum has announced "The Ancient History of Israel and Judah" event has now been rescheduled, rather than cancelled.

In a statement, the museum wrote, "Exploring and understanding history lies at the heart of the British Museum's mission. We are proud to work with faith, community and national organisations across a wide range of subjects and perspectives, and this event is no exception."

[Hen Mazzig @HenMazzig]

She’s 80 years old.

Dame Helen Mirren was walking home through London at night with her husband when a stranger came at her with a phone. Her first instinct, the reflex of a woman who has spent eight decades being decent, was to smile and ask if he was okay. He answered by screaming “evil Zionist b**ch!” in her face, then turned and cursed at her 81-year-old husband too.

Her crime: she once said she believes Israel should exist, that she supports peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and signed a letter supporting a Jewish Israeli singer’s right to sing at Eurovision. That’s it. For that, a grown man followed an 80-year-old down a dark street to abuse her.

Just last week at Cannes, Hannah Einbinder and Javier Bardem spent the whole festival describing how much it costs to speak up for Palestine, how they got blacklisted for it. They said it from the stage of the biggest film festival on earth, in cover interviews with Variety and every paper in Hollywood, to a standing ovation. That is the strangest kind of silencing. It comes with a step and repeat and a publicist booking the next interview.

Nobody chased them down a dark street for any of it. Helen Mirren is the one that happened to. They filmed her, posted it to a crowd happy to pile on, and turned an 80-year-old into the villain of the day for refusing to join the mob. And she has said nothing.

People keep telling you this is about politics. It isn’t.

He decided in advance that a certain kind of person is fair game, and once you’ve made that decision, the age stops mattering and the decency stops mattering.

He looked at an 80-year-old woman who had just asked if he was okay and saw a Jew, or in this case an ally to Jews. That was all he needed.

They came for her on her way home, with her husband beside her, and the likes rolled in. This is a Tuesday for them. The only difference today is that you saw it.