Stephen

[Grouchenka Nitsyne @Grouchenka2]

🔴 🇮🇱🕊️magnifique hommage au peuple d’israël 🇮🇱🕊️✍️

Moi, Hassen Chalghoumi ,fils d’Ismaël, imam,musulman, homme de paix, je présente ici mon témoignage sincère sur ce peuple extraordinaire :
Je dois l’avouer : je crois aux religions et aux miracles. Mais il y a quelque chose chez ce peuple le peuple d’Israël qui donne l’impression qu’il est, en réalité, un miracle vivant.
Un peuple que les pharaons ont tenté d’effacer il y a 3000 ans… et ils ont échoué.
Un peuple que les Babyloniens ont tenté de détruire il y a 2500 ans… et ils ont échoué.
Un peuple que les Romains ont voulu anéantir il y a 2000 ans… et ils ont échoué.
Un peuple que les nazis ont tenté d’exterminer il y a 80 ans… sans parvenir à le faire disparaître.
Un peuple que les Arabes ont combattu dans cinq guerres pour l’effacer de la carte… et ils ont échoué.
C’est un petit peuple en nombre, mais doté d’une force unique, d’une bénédiction divine. Là où il pose la main, il réussit : dans la finance, le commerce, la science, la philosophie, la littérature… Une terre désertique qu’il a transformée en jardin, sans pétrole ni gaz, mais avec la liberté, la démocratie, l’intelligence et la volonté.
C’est un peuple qui a donné au monde Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Franz Kafka, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Baruch Spinoza, Sigmund Freud… et bien d’autres encore qui ont marqué l’humanité.
Il existe des réalités que ni la raison ni la logique ne peuvent expliquer. Il n’y a qu’un mot pour cela : miracle.
ce peuple combat sur cinq fronts. On disait qu’il s’épuiserait, qu’il allait s’effondrer… et pourtant, il surprend le monde en ouvrant un nouveau front contre un ennemi iranien qui fait peur à beaucoup, même parmi les régimes arabes.
Ce peuple, malgré son petit nombre, possède le courage des nobles, la sagesse des prophètes, la patience des justes et la détermination des survivants. Comment pourrait-il en être autrement, quand on sait qu’ils sont les descendants d’Abraham, Solomon, David, Moses, Jacob, Joseph… et de 1523 prophètes et messagers issus de leur lignée.
C’est un peuple qui a apporté au monde le monothéisme et la foi en un seul Dieu. Un peuple animé par la soif de vivre, de travailler, d’innover et de se perpétuer, et qui perdure depuis plus de 4000 ans.
Vraiment, je ne trouve pas d’autre mot pour le décrire que : le peuple-miracle.
Si les Arabes avaient une vision claire, ils choisiraient de s’unir à ce peuple, d’apprendre de lui, de coopérer avec lui… Peut-être s’imprégneraient-ils alors de son savoir, de sa sagesse et de son sens de l’honneur.
Hassen Chalghoumi
Imam.🙏🕊️🇮🇱 ✍️

[Imam of Peace @Imamofpeace]

A Statement of Conscience on October 7

I will not start by saying ‘as a Muslim’ or ‘as an imam’, but as a human being.

On October 7, over 1,200 innocent people were killed in a single day. Families were shot in their homes. Young people out dancing were hunted across open fields. Over 250 people, including children and the elderly, were dragged into Gaza as hostages. I think of a mother hiding in a safe room with her baby’s mouth covered. I think of a father listening as the line went quiet. I think of families who waited month after month for someone to come home, only to receive a coffin. I didn’t need my faith to recognize the evil of what happened. My heart told me first.

But I’m a Muslim and an imam, and I owe the world one honest sentence: what was done that day was a crime against God. God teaches that whoever kills one innocent soul, it is as if he had killed all humanity.

This day has an author: Yahya Sinwar. He planned it, ordered it, and knew what would follow. Every death of that day and war he started rests on him and Hamas leaders who sat in tunnels and foreign hotels and called slaughter a victory. It rests on every Palestinian leader who cheered, excused, handed out sweets, or said nothing. They chose this. They own it.

But Sinwar did not invent himself. He was the fruit of a tree planted almost a century ago by the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas named itself in its founding charter as the Brotherhood’s branch in Palestine. The Brotherhood’s poison is slow. It arrives through study circles, youth camps, charity boxes, and kind words to lonely young men. Drop by drop, it teaches him that his religion is a political party, his neighbour is his enemy, the Jew is the cause of his sorrow, and God is pleased by rage. By the time the gun arrives, the soul is already taken.

I have seen this poison in mosques where sermons became rallies and young men could recite slogans but not sit still for a verse on mercy. Every people that let the Brotherhood in has paid in blood and ruined generations. It has never built anything it did not first set on fire.

Behind Hamas stands another hand: the IRGC. It was the IRGC’s money, weapons, and training that turned a hateful idea into an army. One calls itself Sunni and the other Shia, and they may curse each other’s creeds, but they are united in what they worship. It is not God. It is power. The same IRGC that armed the killers of October 7 shoots Iranian girls for showing their hair, hangs young men for asking to be free, and has left graves from Tehran to Damascus to Beirut. They speak in God’s name. So did Pharaoh speak in the name of heaven.

So let me say this clearly. Hamas and the IRGC are not merely enemies of Islam. That would be too small a charge, as if their crime were only against us. They are enemies of God. God is the Giver of life, yet they deal in death. God calls Himself the Most Merciful, yet they have made cruelty a sacrament. God honoured the children of Adam, yet they look at a child and see a target or a shield. To murder what God created and sign His name to it is the oldest blasphemy.

And we Muslims have been too quiet. Some of us were afraid. Some told ourselves it was not our business. Some, God forgive them, felt something other than horror that morning and never confessed it. Silence was the soil this poison grew in. I will not add to it.

So on this anniversary, let us say plainly what our scripture already says. The Jews are not our enemies. They are our cousins in Abraham, and their dead were created by the same God who created us. Today belongs to them: the murdered, the hostages, and families who still set a place at the table. To them I say: I am sorry for what was done to you by men who used the words of my prayers. You’re not alone in your grief or remembrance.

The enemies of God are those who murder in His name. We know their names. It is time we said them from our own pulpits, in our own voices, before they speak for us again.

Imam Tawhidi

[Simon Schama @simon_schama]

wow, the Mayors are queuing up to make sure we don't get to grieve without offering an apology. After a drive-by gesture of regret Mamdani proceeded to contextualise us to death and without ever uttering the J word . J people not allowed their own mourning even when massacred, mutilated, raped, abducted .

[Boy George @BoyGeorge]

Thank you Israel. I will bring my best and most loving self!

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

Over the summer, Henry Nowak's final moments were broadcast around the world. He was just eighteen, and when the police reached him on a street in Southampton he would have believed that help had come. He told them he had been stabbed and could not breathe, and they handcuffed and arrested him.

I met Henry's family in June, and that meeting has stayed with me ever since. There is still much more to be said about how the police failed Henry, and about how they went on failing his family and loved ones right up until the conviction.

The day after we met, I wrote to the then Prime Minister, Keir Starmer asking for an independent, rapid review of the police response, the decisions that followed, and the role of the police watchdog. I didn't publish that letter at the time, because I hoped the Government would do the right thing and I wanted to work with them quietly to make that happen. Downing Street's answer was to wait for the existing processes to run their course.

Since then, Keir Starmer has gone and Andy Burnham has taken his place, yet still there is no review. There was little mention of victims in the PM’s speech earlier this week. Henry's family have waited long enough, so today I'm publishing my letter. Andy Burnham should order the review now, and I stand ready to work with him to set it up, as I offered in June.

I haven't forgotten Henry, and I won't let this Government forget him either.

[Kate 🐘🇺🇸👠 @KateKcollins1]

I kept hearing that Pope Leo XIV was “far left,” and for a while I assumed there must be some truth to it.

Then I started actually listening to him.

Not clips. Not political commentary. Not somebody telling me what I was supposed to think about him. His speeches. His words. His teaching.

And I have completely changed my opinion of him.

On immigration, he has acknowledged that a country has the right to control its borders. But he does not stop there. He has also told immigrants that entering another country comes with responsibilities. Learn the language. Respect the laws. Learn the customs. Participate in the life of the community.

That struck me because it is neither “open borders” nor a rejection of the immigrant. It is order and responsibility alongside human dignity.

Then there is abortion.

Pope Leo has been absolutely clear that the right to life begins at conception and continues until natural death. In his encyclical, he specifically named induced abortion and euthanasia among choices the Church considers gravely wrong.

And now, as he prepares to go to France, where abortion has been placed in the constitution and assisted dying has advanced into law, the central theme of his visit is essentially a defense of human life: “That the world may have life.” (AP News)

Then listen to what he tells young people.

Stop being afraid of commitment.

Stop being afraid of your vocation.

Stop being afraid of marriage.

When speaking to hundreds of thousands of young people in Spain, he congratulated couples preparing for marriage and told them plainly: “You don’t have to be afraid to get married and start a family.”

In a culture constantly telling young adults to delay marriage, delay children, chase themselves first and keep every option open forever, hearing the Pope tell young people that marriage and family are something beautiful enough to embrace instead of fear hit me hard. (National Catholic Register)

The more I listen to Pope Leo, the more ridiculous our political labels start to look.

Borders matter.

Laws matter.

The unborn matter.

Migrants matter.

Marriage matters.

Families matter.

Human dignity matters.

None of those things cancel the others out.

That is Catholicism.

I thought I had Pope Leo figured out before I really listened to him.

I was wrong.

And honestly, the more I hear from him, the more I love this Pope.

[Guillaume Herblot 🎖️ @Guigz75116]

Lettre ouverte à mes amis d’Israël

J’ai la rage, elle monte, je pleure, pas un peu, vraiment.
J’ai mal. Un mal profond, lourd, presque physique, comme si quelque chose s’était brisé en moi en entendant ces mots.

À la tribune de l’ONU, le locataire de l’Élysée a déclaré que le Hamas « n’a jamais sévi en Cisjordanie ».

J’ai entendu, j’ai relu, j’ai voulu croire à une maladresse et ce n’en était pas une. C’est une abjection, une phrase qui efface des morts, qui protège un mensonge, et qui le fait au nom de la France.

Mon père ne m’a pas élevé pour baisser les yeux. Il m’a dit, encore et encore : dénonce les abjections.

Papa, je le fais aujourd’hui pour toi, mais pas seulement pour toi, pour ma fille, pour qu’elle sache un jour que son père n’a pas été lâche.

Pour moi, pour ce que je ressens et que je refuse d’étouffer par peur du qu’en-dira-t-on.
Ce monsieur ne parle pas en mon nom, ni au nom de nombreux Français qui ont encore une mémoire, une conscience, et le courage de distinguer un peuple qui se défend d’une organisation terroriste qui assassine.

Le Hamas a sévi en Cisjordanie. Il y a eu des cellules, des réseaux, des attentats, des enlèvements et des meurtres.
Il y a quelques jours encore, un terroriste du Hamas a assassiné Netanel Shukrun, père de six enfants, citoyen français, alors qu’il se trouvait avec ses fils près d’une source, à la veille de Yom Kippour. Avant son dernier souffle, il a dit à son fils de courir. Voilà la vérité.

La nier depuis la plus haute tribune du monde, c’est cracher sur une famille, sur un pays, sur le sang.

Rien n’autorise ce mensonge éhonté.
Rien n’autorise à transformer Israël en accusé permanent et le Hamas en détail gênant dès qu’il sort de Gaza.

Je défendrai Israël coûte que coûte et beaucoup d’autres aussi.
Pas demain, pas si c’est confortable, pas si l’on m’applaudit. Maintenant et sans concessions.

Son droit à vivre, son droit à se défendre, son droit à ne pas disparaître sous les formules commodes de ceux qui n’ont jamais eu à enterrer leurs enfants après un pogrom.

Ce n’est pas de la haine c’est de la fidélité. Fidélité aux morts, fidélité à la vérité, fidélité à ce que mon père m’a transmis et à ce que je veux transmettre à ma fille.

Je sais ce qui vient. Je sais ce qui m’attend un torrent de boue, de haine, et d’insultes.

Allez-y. Crachez votre haine, je suis solide. Je ne bougerai pas.

Ma voix tremble, oui, mes larmes coulent, oui. Mais je ne recule pas, j’affronte, cela fait parti de mon ADN.

Je n’ai pas de palais, pas de communiqué, pas de filet diplomatique.
J’ai une éducation, j’ai une fille, j’ai la mémoire de mon père et surtout Israël qui est la dernière barrière de la barbarie islamiste.

J’ai la nausée devant le locataire de l’Élysée qui, au nom de mon pays, nie ce que des familles ont payé de leur chair.

Amis d’Israël, vous n’êtes pas seuls.
Nous sommes nombreux, plus nombreux qu’on ne le croit, à refuser que cette phrase soit la nôtre.

Ce monsieur ne parle pas en notre nom.
Moi, je parlerai.Nous parlerons.

Je m’excuse auprès de vous, du fond de cette douleur qui ne passe pas.

Et je reste debout.

Guillaume Herblot❤️

[Padre Javier Olivera Ravasi @PJavierOR]

Holy Communion: In the Hand or on the Tongue?
Homily, September 20, 2026

Last Sunday, in our homily, we reflected on the need to strengthen our catechesis concerning the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Today, continuing with that theme, we would like to conclude these reflections by considering the manner in which we receive Our Lord in Holy Communion.
Few liturgical questions have generated as much discussion in recent decades as the manner of receiving Holy Communion. To understand the issue properly, we need to set ideological positions aside and consider both what happened historically and what the Church has actually taught.
What Happened in 1969?
In 1969, under Pope St. Paul VI, the Instruction Memoriale Domini was issued. Its historical context is important. In a number of places, the practice of receiving Holy Communion in the hand had been introduced without authorization, contrary to the discipline then in force. At the same time, the Church was deeply concerned about errors and confusion regarding the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Faced with this situation, the Holy See consulted the bishops of the world. The majority favored retaining the traditional discipline—that is, receiving Holy Communion on the tongue.
Pope Paul VI therefore confirmed the traditional manner of receiving Communion and warned that changing the practice could lead to diminished reverence toward the Blessed Sacrament, the danger of profanation, and the adulteration of true doctrine. Nevertheless, in places where the contrary practice had already become established—particularly in countries with a Protestant heritage—episcopal conferences could request an indult—that is, an exceptional permission—from the Holy See for Communion to be distributed in the hand.
“But Didn’t the Early Christians Receive Communion in the Hand?” someone might ask
There is evidence that Christians in the early centuries of the Church received Holy Communion in the hand. But using this historical fact in isolation can be misleading.
St. Basil the Great, in the fourth century, speaks explicitly about receiving Communion in one’s own hand in circumstances such as times of persecution, when a priest or deacon was not available. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, also in the fourth century, describes the communicant making the left hand a “throne” for the right in order to receive the King. He also insists upon the greatest care that nothing of the Eucharist be lost.
Other early Christian writers likewise testify to the extraordinary care with which the Eucharist was treated and to concern that nothing consecrated should be lost or profaned.
Thus, even when Communion in the hand existed in the ancient Church, we should not simply assume that it was identical in manner, discipline, or surrounding ritual to the modern practice. What is unmistakable in the ancient sources is the profound reverence with which Christians approached and handled the Holy Eucharist.
In any event, the antiquity of a practice does not by itself prove its superiority. If our criterion were simply, “The early Christians did it,” then, for example, all women would have to cover their heads at Mass, none of them could proclaim the readings, and men and women would have to sit separately. Pope Pius XII already warned in his encyclical Mediator Dei that an ancient practice, merely because it is ancient, should not necessarily be considered better.
Over the course of the centuries, the Church’s Eucharistic discipline gradually developed, and increasingly precise measures were adopted to safeguard the Blessed Sacrament.
Why Did This Development Take Place?
Memoriale Domini itself gives us an important explanation. As the Church’s understanding and reverence for the Eucharistic mystery deepened, the custom developed whereby the minister placed the consecrated Host directly upon the tongue of the communicant.
Three elements therefore appear closely related: a deeper understanding of the Eucharistic mystery, greater reverence toward the Blessed Sacrament, and an attitude of humility in receiving Our Lord.
What, Then, Is the Best Way to Receive?
Receiving Holy Communion in the hand, where it is legitimately permitted, is not per se a sacrilege. Nor can we automatically judge a person’s interior devotion on the basis of whether he receives Communion on the tongue or in the hand. But this does not mean that the two manners of receiving must necessarily be regarded as pastorally identical.
The Instruction Memoriale Domini expressly points to the advantages of the traditional manner of receiving Holy Communion on the tongue. Speaking of this traditional practice, it states that:
“This method of distributing holy communion must be retained, taking the present situation of the Church in the entire world into account, not merely because it has many centuries of tradition behind it, but especially because it expresses the faithful’s reverence for the Eucharist.”
The document goes on to explain that this traditional manner more effectively safeguards the reverence, decorum, and dignity due to Holy Communion, protects against the danger of profanation of the Eucharistic species, and safeguards the careful attention that the Church has always required regarding the fragments of the consecrated Bread.
This is not about turning the manner of receiving Communion into an ideological banner, nor is it about claiming that a person who receives on the tongue is necessarily holier than someone who receives in the hand. Rather, it is about asking ourselves which outward signs most clearly express what we truly believe.
If the consecrated Host is truly the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, then our bodily attitude should manifest that faith. The history of the Church shows a progressive development of signs of adoration, humility, and reverence before the Eucharistic mystery.
Therefore, beyond controversies and personal preferences, perhaps the fundamental question is much simpler:
How can we receive Our Lord with the greatest possible reverence?
Blessed and praised be the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Now and forever, blessed and praised.
Fr. Javier Olivera Ravasi
Saint Monica / St Thomas the Apostle Parish
Archdiocese of San Francisco

[Yoni Leviatan @songsofyoni]

Here’s what the media doesn’t tell you about the caricature of Israel you have in your mind.

In less than two hours, over 7 million Jewish Israelis will mark Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. Some will go to synagogue. Some will go to the beach. Nobody will drive unless they have to. Many will not eat or drink for 25 hours, religious or not.

Then you have over 2 million Arab Israelis who will go on with their lives as usual. Many will not drive in mixed cities out of respect for their Jewish neighbors. Nobody will drive in Jewish neighborhoods. And the hospitals will only be filled with Arab doctors and nurses to let their Jewish colleagues observe the day at home. (The opposite happens on Ramadan.)

Not long ago I went out to run a few last-minute errands before the holiday begins. Every Arab I interacted with – at the dry cleaners, in the supermarket, in the elevator – wished me an easy fast.

Every one.

It happens every holiday. Any holiday. Their holidays and ours.

This is the real Israel. A country filled with Jews and Arabs that get along better than anywhere else on this planet, that nobody shows you because it’s simply not newsworthy.

It’s everyday life.

To all those who observe – have an easy fast.

גמר חתימה טובה

[Stephen @s_raftery]

Yes, yes, yes

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

Every glib, arrogant, virtue-signalling celebrity who’s broadcast the lie that kids will kill themselves if not allowed to transition deserves to have this read aloud to them non-stop through a megaphone for a year.

[Stephen @s_raftery]

Yes, yes, yes

[Veiled Leaks @veiledleaks]

Breaking news 🇦🇺 Australian police remove Muslims praying to Allah in the middle of a Sydney street. Did the police do the right thing

A Yes

B No

[Mor Edge Insight @MorEdge_Insight]

Everyone posts the same Bill Clinton clip from Camp David in 2000, and I understand why. It is a clean story and it is easy to share. But then the replies start. “You cannot trust Clinton”. “He is American. He is pro-Israel”. “That is not the full picture”.

Well then here is Hosni Mubarak, the former president of Egypt, sitting in Cairo and talking about something most people on here have never even heard of. The Mena House conference in 1977. Years before Clinton, and years before the 2000 summit everyone argues about.

He says they held a conference there and the Palestinians refused to participate. It wasn’t some complicated diplomatic disagreement. They simply would not even come. He says that every time there was an opportunity they wasted it, and that if they had taken the document that was already on the table and actually negotiated over it, the region would not be in the disaster it is in now.

That document, in his account, included the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank and Gaza. The argument was not even whether Israel would leave. The argument was who would control security during the transitional period. Jordanian and Palestinian forces? Israeli and Palestinian forces? Other Arab forces? He says the Israelis did not mind negotiating those points.

Egypt signed a peace agreement and was insulted for it.

Then he says the line that should bother people more than any American speech. For fifty years they repeatedly said NO.

They said NO After 1948. They said NO After 1967.

He says they will keep saying no until there is nothing left to bargain over.

This is not an Israeli spokesman and it is not the White House. This is an Egyptian president telling you the walkout did not begin in 2000. It was already a habit long before that.

[Dana Rachel 🇻🇦 @thyflameoflove]

✝️❤️🗡️ Our Lady made seven extraordinary promises to those who honor her Sorrows and the final one is especially powerful... ⤵️

📅 September 15: Feast day of Our Lady of Sorrows

"My daughter, the tears which you shed in compassion for My sufferings are pleasing to Me, but bear in mind that on account of My excessive love for My Mother, the tears you shed in compassion for her sufferings are still more precious."
- Jesus reveals to Blessed Veronica of Binasco

These are among some of the greatest promises ever attached to a devotion. God Himself willed it this way, out of His tender care for the sorrows and sufferings of His Mother. That’s how deeply He loves His own mother....

1. “I will grant peace to their families.”

2. “They will be enlightened about the Divine Mysteries.”

3. “I will console them in their pains, and I will accompany them in their work.”

4. “I will give them as much as they ask for, as long as it does not oppose the adorable will of my Divine Son or the sanctification of their souls.”

5. “I will defend them in their spiritual battles with the infernal enemy, and I will protect them at every instant of their lives.”

6. “I will visibly help them at the moment of their death. They will see the face of their Mother.”

7. “I have obtained this grace from my Divine Son: those who spread devotion to my tears and sorrows will be taken directly from this earthly life to eternal happiness, since all their sins will be forgiven, and my Son will be their eternal consolation and joy.”

These are extraordinary promises connected with devotion to the Sorrows of Our Lady. They remind us how deeply Jesus loves His Mother and how seriously He receives the love shown to the one who stood faithfully beside Him at the Cross.

SHARE THIS POST BECAUSE ⤵️ One of the promises says:
“Those who spread devotion to my tears and sorrows will be taken straight from this life into eternal happiness. All their sins will be forgiven, and my Son will be their everlasting consolation and joy.”

👇 See the comments for the devotion prayers.

[Tracy-Ann Oberman MBE @TracyAnnO]

I’ve stopped posting about this of late BUT :

In Cambridge recently - there were four upper middle class educated grey haired white grandmas and one grey haired grandpa on a Saturday demonstration near the theatre. One of the non-jewish actors I work with who met quite a few of the survivors of October 7 at the recent Nova Exhibition went and asked the five Grey Grandparents what they thought about October 7 with the terrible rapes abductions murders & atrocitities carried out that day. The Gray Grandpa told the Actor that none of the atrocities really happened that it was all hearsay and speculation. One of the old middleclass Grey Grandmas said ‘actually I don’t care’

For the record having met many of the survivors, many of the rape survivors and many of the families who’s children were murdered at the Nova festival -I can categorically tell you that some of the worst atrocities I have ever heard of happened that day. Never allow anyone to deny what happened on October 7th. Please. It doesn’t matter what your political affiliation is but once you start denying rape and sexual violence to one group of people when there is empirical evidence- you will end up denying all. 🙌

[UNA VOCE SEVILLA - Misa Tradicional @UnaVoceSevilla]

Obispo Mutsaerts, Países Bajos: “la Iglesia católica no necesita un sínodo permanente sobre sí misma. Necesita santos. Obispos que enseñen. Sacerdotes que recen. Religiosos que vivan radicalmente para Dios. Padres que transmitan la fe. Jóvenes que descubran que la verdad es más que una opinión. Una liturgia en la que Dios ocupe realmente el lugar central. Confesionarios en los que los pecadores encuentren el perdón. Seminarios en los que se forme a hombres dispuestos a entregar su vida a Cristo. Católicos que no se pregunten constantemente cómo debe adaptarse la Iglesia al mundo, sino que tengan el valor de invitar al mundo a dejarse transformar por Cristo”

Carta abierta a Su Santidad sobre la “Sinodalidad”

[Andrew Fox @Mr_Andrew_Fox]

The two-state solution is dead. Banging on about it helps nobody. Sanctioning Israel doesn’t help a single Palestinian. Britain needs a policy with a chance of working. We need to de-recognise “Palestine” and start over from first principles.

1. Accountability for Palestinian hate preaching, antisemitic education, and pay-for-slay. Not a penny in aid or a step forward without that.

2. Back Palestinian emirates: local leaders with residents’ consent, willing to recognise Israel. No imposed puppets.

3. Fund jobs and schools that teach coexistence. Bring willing Arab partners in to share the bill.

4. Insist on genuine Palestinian self-government and reliable movement. Israel must ease restrictions on those areas as security improves.

5. Build community by community. Give Palestinians something worth protecting from militants who would wreck it.

6. Help Israel and Jordan cut Iran-linked arms routes. Protect Palestinians prepared to cooperate. Stop letting their would-be murderers dictate everyone else’s future.

Forget about a two-state solution. Israel is not going to commit national suicide just because Ed Miliband wants them to. Time for something else instead that might actually work.

[Nicole Lampert @nicolelampert]

Rabbi Leo Dee whose wife and daughters were murdered by Palestinian terrorists:

Dear Andy Burnham,

I am perhaps the British citizen who has suffered most directly from Britain’s misguided policies towards Israel and the Palestinians over the past 25 years.

My Oxford-educated wife, Lucy, and my British-educated daughters, Maia and Rina, were brutally murdered by Palestinian terrorists in the Jordan Valley in April 2023. Since their murders, the terrorists’ families have been eligible for payments from the Palestinian Authority under its notorious “pay-for-slay” system. The terrorist organisations responsible for so much bloodshed have also flourished in an environment sustained for decades by international funding, including British support for the PA and UNRWA.

And now you propose boycotting products made by Jews living in the West Bank.

You insist that you are not against Israelis. Yet you are prepared to single out Jewish Israelis like me for economic punishment.

That is the hypocrisy I find so difficult to accept.

For decades, Palestinian terrorism has killed thousands of innocent Israelis, like my wife and daughters, while the Palestinian Authority has operated a system financially rewarding prisoners and the families of those killed carrying out attacks partially funded by the UK. Yet your moral outrage is directed not at those institutions, but at Jewish businesses in Judea and Samaria.

Of course Palestinians have also been killed by Israelis, including tragically innocent people. But many deaths have occurred during terrorist attacks, armed clashes and Israeli security operations. Equating those circumstances with a government system that financially rewards convicted terrorists and their families obscures a crucial moral distinction.

To paraphrase the late Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks: criticising or boycotting Israel is not necessarily antisemitic. Singling out Israel for standards applied to no other country can be.

If you genuinely believe your policy is principled rather than discriminatory, I invite you to defend it publicly.

I would be happy to debate you on television, anywhere and at any time.

Rabbi Leo Dee

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

I see that Stella Creasy is accusing me of leading a pitchfork mob against her, because I opined that she is less likeable and more hypocritical than the wild parakeet she mistook for an escaped pet.

For those who don’t know, Creasy is an elected politician and self-proclaimed ‘old-fashioned feminist’ who is ‘still fighting the patriarchy’. She’s more than once publicly defined herself against me (and my reaction was not to accuse her of leading a mob, even though I was probably averaging a dozen death threats a day at the point when the article below appeared.)

I thought it might be instructive for those of us who don’t share Creasy’s brand of ‘feminism’ to examine her campaigning record, so we can learn to do better.

Creasy wants women admitted to the male-only, exclusive, London-based private members Garrick Club, a change that would benefit rather privileged women like Creasy. Creasy is a mother who wants better accommodations for working mothers, a change that would benefit Creasy. Creasy takes selfies at a men-only Muslim march because that reminds everyone how non-racist she is, which benefits Creasy. Creasy asserts that ‘trans women are women’, which keeps her in good odour with her party’s most aggressive activists, and benefits Creasy.

However, keeping cross-dressing heterosexual men out of nurses’ changing rooms doesn’t benefit Creasy, because Creasy has never had to mop up other people’s piss, blood and vomit at work. Challenging the notion that a male basketball player becomes a girl if he says he is doesn’t benefit Creasy, who has no sporting ambitions. Speaking up against the patriarchy as practised by non-white men doesn’t benefit Creasy, who wants those selfie-opportunities. Criticising an ideological movement that persecutes, harasses and openly threatens women who don’t believe some women have penises wouldn't benefit Creasy, because she's already fully-signed up to self-id, where any man who says he's a woman must be taken at his word.

As the late Gloria Steinem said: ‘“Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere.’

Creasy the patriarchy-challenger is provably more than happy to cosy up to men and misogynist movements when it suits her public profile and career advancement, no matter the harms those men might be causing less privileged women. By Steinem’s definition, what Stella espouses is not feminism, but Creasyism, and I suggest the emblem for this brave new rights movement should be an indignant parakeet with severely ruffled feathers.

https://t.co/8lvktG2vI6