contranz

[contranz @contra_nz]

@Suitandtie9999 I wouldn't have known there were poor people, until Tamatha proclaimed it (twice) in today's debate. So wise at such a young age.

[Ani O'Brien @aniobrien]

Three years ago today, there was no war raging in Gaza. There was a ceasefire.

Then, in the early hours of 7 Oct, Hamas launched a coordinated invasion of Israel. Thousands of armed men crossed the border & they deliberately went looking for civilians.

They went into homes & murdered families. They killed children & elderly. They abducted men, women & children & dragged them back into Gaza as hostages where civilians cheered.

And they attacked the Nova music festival. Hundreds of young people were dancing in the desert when terrorists descended on them. It is grimly familiar to see Islamist terrorists choosing a place of music, dancing, & freedom as a killing ground. Manchester. The Bataclan. Nova.

There are photographs & videos of what happened that day because, extraordinarily, many of the perpetrators filmed it themselves.

There is a plethora of evidence of sexual violence. There is the intercepted call in which a Hamas attacker excitedly told his parents that he had killed 10 Jews “with my own hands”. They raped & burned bodies, hunted people through fields & into bomb shelters, & paraded terrified hostages through Gaza.

It was an atrocity.

And something happened in the West almost immediately afterwards that I still struggle to comprehend.

Before Israel had even buried its dead, people thousands of kilometres away began finding reasons why the victims had it coming.

Within days, the murderer and the murdered had begun swapping places in the popular imagination.

Three years later, antisemitism has returned with a fervour to Western society with a speed and confidence that should terrify us.

Ancient conspiracies about Jewish power & blood libels have been repackaged in the vocabulary of “decolonisation”. Jewish people around the world have been expected to account for the actions of a foreign government. People have celebrated or rationalised terrorism as “resistance”. Influencers who could not have found Gaza on a map 4 years ago have turned Palestine into an entire political identity.

And an extraordinary amount of propaganda has been swallowed without the slightest curiosity about the people producing it.

So, since the word itself is now treated as an obscenity I will admit that I am a Zionist.

Zionism, at its most basic, is the belief that the Jewish people have a right to national self-determination in their historic homeland & that Israel has a right to continue to exist as a Jewish state.

That does not mean believing the Israeli government is always right. It does not mean supporting every military action, every politician, or every policy. It does not mean believing Palestinian civilians have no rights or that their suffering does not matter.

It means I believe Israel should exist. Shouldnt be eradicated.

If Israel’s objective were simply to obliterate Gaza without regard for civilian life, it possesses the firepower to inflict destruction on a vastly greater scale. But they don’t.

Hamas, meanwhile, has repeatedly made clear that it regards the destruction of Israel (not peaceful coexistence with it). They have turned down peace deals & 2 state solutions.

You can grieve for innocent Palestinians. I do. And you can criticise Israel. I do.

You can also believe that every innocent life lost in this war is a tragedy.

But I will not pretend that Hamas is a liberation movement. I will not romanticise men who deliberately massacred & raped civilians. I will not accept that murdering Jews is morally complicated because the murderers have run a highly successful propaganda campaign.

And I will not participate in the extraordinary collective amnesia about how this war began.

On 7 Oct 2023, people were dancing. Then Hamas came across the border to kill them.

I remember them today.

[contranz @contra_nz]

@aniobrien Hipkins even

[contranz @contra_nz]

@aniobrien I've had plenty of interactions with Doctors over the past year and I can safely say the last thing I was interested in was that they were a reflection of myself. Hopkins got away with talking absolute crap there, and Luxon should have called him on it.

[contranz @contra_nz]

@Tiare_MP I'm just surprised he hasn't gone all in and called it "Dirty Mahi".

[contranz @contra_nz]

@TMartinborough @henrycooke @kapiti_coaster Only a few days ago I watched a youtube video where an English journalist went undercover for months within the migrant smuggling operation in Calais. I thought that was brave, but it comes a poor 2nd place to Nicky's valour. What a man! Stunning

[contranz @contra_nz]

@BenGrahamUK Well Restore now know the rules of engagement, get yourselves organized and protect those volunteers. SUTR won't go near them if there's a few lads there to deter them. Nobody handing out leaflets, of any persuasion, should be fearing for their own safety.

[contranz @contra_nz]

@PatForde81072 @Suitandtie9999 That would be a nil all draw. If Tamathas brain cells got together for a party it would be a very low key affair.

[contranz @contra_nz]

Despite playing in this year's World Cup NZ couldn't be lined up with any other nations for the midweek friendlies, so we get to play a made up country.

[contranz @contra_nz]

@CrazyKiwi22 @bensmithrugby I think Tupou has had enough chances now. He gives away too many penalties, good player but there are others waiting for a shot who play smarter rugby.

[Charlie Walsham @CharlieWalsham_]

I’ve noticed that the posts of mine that resonate most are often those expressing values that, not very long ago, were almost entirely uncontroversial.

Imagine that: getting attention on the internet for stating what used to be blindingly obvious.

I used to think of myself as a progressive liberal. A wet centrist, perhaps. I tried to see the world positively and had little time for the mean-minded, spiteful rhetoric of parts of the right.

I still don’t consider myself right wing. But I am thoroughly disenchanted with the left.

So where does that leave me?

In the same place as millions of others: politically homeless, longing for a return to principles that people on both left and right once broadly understood.

That women’s rights matter, and sex-based rights must ultimately be based on biology.

That children should grow up with love and support and, where necessary, psychological help, but never be told they were “born in the wrong body” or set on a medical pathway towards irreversible hormonal or surgical interventions that cannot change their sex or somehow make them more “authentic”.

That borders should be secure, while controlled immigration can enrich a country economically and culturally.

That free speech is essential to a healthy democracy, because bad ideas must be exposed and defeated rather than silenced.

That freedom of religion matters, but nobody has the right to impose their religious beliefs on everyone else. Religion must remain open to criticism, ridicule and satire. Criticising an idea is not the same thing as hating a race. Blasphemy laws are backward-looking and profoundly un-British.

That justice should be blind. One law for everyone. People should be judged by the content of their character rather than the colour of their skin. No double standards. No cultural excuses for appalling behaviour.

Yet somehow we have reached a point where politicians can insist that men are women and expect everyone else to deny the evidence of their own eyes; where children suffering from gender dysphoria are “affirmed” rather than reassured, supported and given the time and space to grow up in peace; where people can face police action over things written online while genuinely hateful demonstrations take place on our streets; and where concerns about uncontrolled migration from countries with deeply regressive values are routinely dismissed as bigotry.

So yes, I’m frustrated. Disenchanted. Thoroughly fed up.

And it is especially disappointing to me that the BBC, my own employer, funded by all of us, has too often amplified some of the ideological assumptions that helped bring us here.

So I’ll keep speaking out.

And I’m grateful to anyone who listens.

[contranz @contra_nz]

@TrevorH53038397 @nzherald Over a year into the role, on her salary, she absolutely should "have direct knowledge of earlier events relevant to the review"! Our expectations need to return to public servants being held accountable.

[contranz @contra_nz]

@timeforchangenz @BarryYoungNZ Former Minister and I think it was Green MP Tamatha Paul clearly pushing him away

[Di Landy. We Are All Rex Landy @CallMeAl_KPSS]

NZ the country with no accountability for management class

[Trevor Hughes @TrevorH53038397]

Iwi leader Helmut Modlik cleared over Tiaki Wai conflict ‘speculation’ , via @nzherald https://t.co/m3irS5zS26

"North Island iwi Ngāti Toa recently acquired a majority shareholding in Construction Contracts Ltd (CCL), a civil infrastructure firm specialising in water, which has contracts with new Wellington water entity Tiaki Wai.The company has touted the commercial opportunities in billions of dollars in upcoming water spending.

Helmut Modlik, the chief executive of Ngāti Toa, was made a director of CCL in February, according to the companies register."

He also has an unelected seat on the "Partners" Board of Tiaki Wai. The Auditor-General needs to look at this.

[Charlie Walsham @CharlieWalsham_]

This is the political divide that increasingly matters to me.

Not left versus right.

Reality versus ideology.

Do we begin with observable facts and debate how to balance rights and responsibilities?

Or do we decide what a “kind” person is supposed to believe according to the latest fashionable orthodoxies and work backwards from there?

The answer is obvious to anyone who remains rational.

[contranz @contra_nz]

@JOSH___AOTEAROA Clearly you haven't watched Wellington this year. It's a very tough watch.

[contranz @contra_nz]

@_preposterously If anyone can recognise victim performance it would be this prick, he's a master of it. Actual real world victims, not so much.

[contranz @contra_nz]

@99Wereld @joshxhowie Pager, Pager

[contranz @contra_nz]

@HeidiBachram @TfL I wonder if Sam is going to turn out to be short for Samantha in this instance?