The Counter-Jeethad on X

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Despite my optimism about the Trump administration, two big worries: the fanatical Zionism of several of his appointments and the prospective H-1B fiasco being advocated by Elon Musk, David O. Sacks, and Vivek Ramaswamy  — all major players in the incoming administration. As Laura Loomer notes, the H1-B policy advocated by these people is not an America First policy. And, as Greg Johnson notes, it is basically an anti-White policy. The problem, of course, is the official color-blindness which still dominates mainstream conservatism, now in a context of anti-White hate broadcast from the all the moral high ground of the West — particularly the media and academia.

Note that Loomer is Jewish. I agree with Johnson that this is not a problem. We have to take allies wherever we can find them. Jews understand that it’s not about principles but about interests, and the mainstream Jewish community does not see Loomer as compatible with Jewish interests, most likely because she has stood up for White people and Christian Nationslism. Here’s the ADL on Loomer:

On December 8, 2022, Twitter reinstated right-wing political activist, former Congressional candidate in Florida and self-proclaimed “proud Islamophobe” Laura Loomer, where she is verified through Twitter Blue. That day, Loomer posted to Telegram: “This feels so surreal after being totally silenced for 4 years. Now I can return to exposing the truth to millions of people every day, just like I used to.” Loomer has a history of extremist ties, including a close relationship with white supremacist Nick Fuentes, and has tweeted allegations that the GOP rigged her (failed) primary election “because they didn’t want me in office exposing their corruption.”

Extremists and Conspiracy Theorists Reemerge on Twitter

The ADL links to this article on MSNBC:

Laura Loomer, the far-right extremist and proud bigot who failed to win the Republican nomination in a Florida congressional race Tuesday, is as vile as they come. But because Loomer is encouraging her supporters not to vote for the GOP nominee in the general election, she may just be the Democrats’ best weapon to win an otherwise safe GOP seat. Here’s hoping she inspires other MAGA losers to follow her lead.

For those lucky enough to not know who Loomer is, she’s a one-stop shop for bigotry.

For those lucky enough to not know who Loomer is, she’s a one-stop shop for bigotry. She has dubbed herself a “proud Islamophobe” and has backed it up with a slew of hate-filled comments about Muslims being “savages.” On a podcast hosted by a white nationalist, she declared, “I’m going to fight for white people” and added, “I’m a really big supporter of the Christian nationalist movement.” And this 29-year-old — who was gleefully endorsed by Donald Trump when she ran for Congress in 2020 — has been banned by a number of platforms from Twitter to GoFundMe, for her hate speech and conspiracy theories. She can’t even catch an Uber or a Lyft.

Sriram Krishnan, Senior Policy Advisor for AI at the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

2,100 words

This year, my best Christmas present was a war over legal, high-skilled immigration on X. On December 23, Laura Loomer tweeted:

Deeply disturbing to see the appointment of Sriram Krishnan as Senior Policy Advisor for AI at the Office of Science and Technology Policy. . . . How will [we] control immigration in our country and promote America First innovation when Trump appointed this guy who wants to REMOVE all restrictions on green card caps in the United States so that foreign students (which makes up 78% of the employees in Silicon Valley) can come to the US and take jobs that should be given to American STEM students. . . . This is not America First policy.

Soon heavyweights like Elon Musk, David O. Sacks, and Vivek Ramalamadingdong weighed in on the side of Sriram. The sports team analogy was duly trotted out: America needs to compete against China, so we need to recruit the very best team members from around the world, by removing the country-caps on H-1B visas, the vast majority of which go to Indians. Winning against America’s global rivals is measured by GDP and corporate profits.

This is a totally disingenuous argument, because H-1B visas are not for recruiting the “best of the best.” We have a different visa for that: the O visa, which is a temporary non-immigrant worker visa for people of “extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics,” including movies and television. About 38,000 of these visas were granted in 2023. If we had a complete ban on immigration and mass deportation of illegals, I would have no problem with O visas.

H-1B visas are very different. Companies seek these for entry-level positions. They have to prove that they can’t find Americans for the job. But this is obviously bogus, because in many cases, companies have fired existing American workers (mostly white), then brought in H-1Bs, mostly from India, to replace them. These H-1Bs work longer hours at lower wages. Many are incompetent. Many have fake degrees. But they cut costs, raise profits, and enrich management. The fact Indian recruiting firms fill companies with fellow Indians is not meritocracy in action. It is Hindu nepotism. Unsurprisingly, Sriram and Vivek are all for it.

The claim that Indian H-1B visas are about bringing in “the best and the brightest” is entirely fraudulent. It is entirely about lowering wages by hiring substandard, cut-rate, corporate coolies. Yet countless prominent and credentialed people, including Elon Musk and Vivek Ramitupyoursnout, will look you straight in the eye, give you a firm handshake, and repeat that lie over and over again. To borrow a line from Matt Parrott, it is as infuriating a shit test as being asked to pretend that Bruce Jenner is now a woman.

The claim that Big Tech has to resort to hiring foreign workers because they can’t find American workers is entirely bogus. There are thousands of unemployed, mostly white American tech workers who are systematically discriminated against racially by major American corporations. White Americans who seek STEM degrees are also systematically discriminated against by colleges and universities. There are thus many thousands of highly intelligent white Americans with STEM degrees who are unemployed, underemployed, and deeply bitter about their lot. And how many more would pursue STEM if they felt it was a viable path?

The tinder was heaped up. All it needed was Laura Loomer’s spark.

Much to my pleasure, Laura Loomer stood her ground and doubled down, going so far as to demand a divorce between Big Tech and the MAGA movement. We don’t need a divorce. But MAGA needs to show Big Tech that it wears the pants in the family. For this alone, I am declaring Loomer—who describes herself as a “Jewish white nationalist”—to be Counter-Currents’ [Non-White] Ally of the Year for 2024. To those of you who are annoyed because Loomer is a Jew, my answer is simple: if Laura Loomer wants to use her Jewish magic to defend white Americans, good for her. The only thing shameful here is that more white Americans aren’t doing the same.

Continue on Counter-Currents

Feminists for Femicide: How Leftist Lies Lead Inexorably to Dead White Women

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Are you a vile hate-thinker? The answer to that surely came if you heard about a recent horrific murder on the New York subway. Someone set fire to the clothing of a sleeping 76-year-old woman and she burned to death as her killer stood and watched. If you heard about the murder, did you immediately think: “The killer is melanin-enriched, not melanin-deficient”? If you did, then you’re a vile hate-thinker.

Diversity Is Death: Guatemalan enricher Sebastian Zapeta at work on the New York subway (image from Twitter)

And you were right to be one, because a dark-skinned Guatemalan called Sebastian Zapeta was clearly identified on CCTV as the culprit and is now in police custody. In Western societies, non-Whites commit a vastly disproportionate share of crime, particularly violent and sexual crime. But it’s precisely when people are right about racial patterns of crime that the left call them haters and try to silence them. As I’ve pointed out before, the supreme commandment of leftism is “Thou shalt not recognize patterns — except when they’re not there.” Leftism demands that we ignore real patterns of non-Whites harming Whites and accept non-existent patterns of Whites harming non-Whites. That’s why Britain has a martyr-cult for a Black youth called Stephen Lawrence, but no martyr-cult for a White woman called Tracey Mertens.

The martyr-cult of Stephen Lawrence

Who was Tracey Mertens? Well, in the eyes of feminists and other leftists, she was a nobody who deserved oblivion, not attention. Stephen Lawrence was entirely different. He was one of thousands of Blacks murdered in Britain, but he had the rare distinction of being murdered by Whites, not by other Blacks. That’s why he now has an extensive and lavishly funded martyr-cult devoted to promoting a gigantic leftist lie: that cruel and vicious Whites are a permanent threat to saintly and suffering non-Whites. Features of the martyr-cult include the following:

∙ Stephen Lawrence Day, an annual memorial for the martyr created by the so-called Conservative prime minister Theresa May and strategically placed on 22nd April, the day before commemoration of England’s national saint St George and Shakespeare’s traditional birthday.

∙ The Stephen Lawrence Research Centre, which works to demonize Whites and sanctify non-Whites at De Montfort University in the ethnically enriched city of Leicester, where Muslims and Hindus are now re-enacting the tribal feuds of their highly corrupt, violent and rape-friendly homelands.

∙ The Stephen Lawrence Memorial Centre, which works to demonize Whites and sanctify non-Whites in ethnically enriched south-east London, where Blacks murder, rape and rob all other races at vast disproportionate rates.

∙ A Damehood for the martyr’s mother Doreen Lawrence, who now sits in the House of Lords lecturing the White British on ethics and policing. Dame Doreen comes from the highly corrupt, violent and rape-friendly island of Jamaica, which has more murders each year than Britain, despite having a much smaller population. If murders committed in Britain by Jamaicans and extra-judicial murders by the Jamaican police were added to the stats for Jamaica, the discrepancy would be even greater.

The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry in 1999, initiated by the half-Jewish Home Secretary Jack Straw and starring the fully Jewish anti-racism activist Dr Richard Stone. The Inquiry condemned the British police as “institutionally racist” and, like the George Floyd hysteria in America, led to reduced policing of Blacks and other non-Whites, followed by an entirely predictable increase in murder and rape by non-Whites.

Mary-Ann Leneghan and Kris Donald, horrifically murdered by non-Whites and therefore entirely unsuitable for martyr-cults

The full direct and indirect costs of the martyr-cult of Stephen Lawrence must be in the billions of pounds by now. But the far more numerous White victims of non-White killers have not been deemed worthy of a fraction of that funding or attention. There are no martyr-cults for the White children Kris Donald and Mary-Ann Leneghan, who were murdered by non-Whites under far worse circumstances than Stephen Lawrence. 15-year-old Kris Donald was kidnapped by Pakistani Muslims, driven for hundreds of miles as he pleaded for his life, then doused in gasoline and burned alive. 16-year-old Mary-Ann Leneghan was raped and tortured for hours by Blacks, told again and again that she was going to die, then stabbed repeatedly before having her throat slit.

Forgotten by feminists

But there’s no martyr-cult for them. And there’s no martyr-cult for the White woman Tracey Mertens, also murdered under far worse circumstances than Stephen Lawrence. But who was Tracey Mertens? A week ago, I would have had no idea myself. However, by coincidence, her horrific murder-by-incineration has been back in the news at the same time as the horrific murder-by-incineration on the New York subway. But the stories have more in common than their simultaneous appearance in the media. As you read about Tracey Mertens’ murder, please note how it was perfect for a feminist martyr-cult. Except for one thing:

Tracey Mertens, burned alive by Blacks, forgotten by feminists (image from BBC)

The daughter of a woman brutally murdered 30 years ago when she was set on fire in a churchyard has said she will never truly rest until the killers are found. Kelly Hill was 11 when her mum Tracey Mertens walked out the door on 23 December 1994 to pick up some documents from their former home in Birmingham. She never saw her again. Tracey was bundled into a car by two men and driven to Eaton, near Congleton in Cheshire, where she was doused in petrol. [The report does not add “and set on fire” — the BBC was reluctant to state the full horror, for reasons that will become obvious.] She died the following day.

“I can’t let go until I know why and what’s happened – and someone gets in court for it,” Mrs Hill said. “It’s just like she’s forgotten about, but I can’t forget.”

Ms Hill, now 41, said she remembered hearing the door of their new house in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, close as her mum left. “I woke up and I ran over to the window and she was just getting in the car,” she said. “I knocked on the window and I waved to her and she waved back. That was the last time I saw her.”

The family, including her brother Daniel, who was 10 at the time, and father Joey, had moved up north that winter. Tracey had gone to pick up the benefits book she had left at her former home in Nechells, Birmingham, when two men turned up at the door. The following details are known because despite the extensive injuries Tracey had suffered, she was able to tell police what happened in the last hours of her life. The men asked “where’s Joey?” before bundling her into a yellow Ford Escort.

She was driven 60 miles to isolated Christ Church, where she was set on fire in the grounds. Tracey described her attackers as two black men with Birmingham accents, but who also spoke Jamaican Patois. Tracey died the following day, on Christmas Eve. (“‘I can’t let go until I know who killed my mum’,” BBC News, 23rd December 2024)

The one thing that prevented Tracey Mertens’ becoming a feminist martyr is the race of her killers. They were Black and their horrific crime revealed the truth about the bestiality of Blackness. That’s why feminists have ignored Tracey Mertens. Her daughter used too many words when she said: “It’s just like she’s forgotten about.” In fact, the White female Tracey Mertens is definitely forgotten, quite unlike the Black male Stephen Lawrence. Yet by every objective criterion her murder in 1994 was far worse than the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. He was stabbed twice after a chance encounter and might easily have survived. She was incinerated with vicious sadism and given no chance of escape or survival. He died quickly and with relatively little suffering. She died slowly and with horrific suffering. She was a mother with young children. He was a teenager with no children. His killers proved themselves a threat only to young men from racial minorities. Her killers proved themselves a threat to both sexes and all races.

Excluding Blacks is good for Whites

And her killers may have burned her alive simply to strike at her husband Joey Mertens. Reading between the lines of that story at the BBC, I conclude that her husband had offended Black gangsters in Birmingham in some way and that the Black gangsters punished him by incinerating his wife. He must have known how vicious and dangerous they were, but he didn’t ensure that his wife was safe from them. That would be another example of how men cause harm to women, but feminists have never given the murder of Tracey Mertens even a fraction of the attention it deserves.

If they had, they would have found another stark contrast with the murder of Stephen Lawrence. On utilitarian grounds, the killers of Stephen Lawrence can be said to have been protecting women rather than harming them. They were seeking to keep Blacks out of a White working-class area of London. Excluding Blacks is good for Whites and particularly for White women. After all, Blacks commit rape at much higher rates and in worse ways. Gang-rape is a Black speciality in Britain. And just look at Britain’s most prolific gerontophile rapist, a Black called Delroy Easton Grant who raped scores or even hundreds of elderly White women in London, destroying the peace of their final years and in some cases undoubtedly bringing about their premature death.

Inverting the truth

Like the unidentified killers of Tracey Mertens, Delroy Easton Grant was from Jamaica, the Caribbean island that has supplied thousands of murderers, rapists, thieves and tax-eaters to Britain since treacherous politicians imposed non-White immigration against the clearly expressed opposition of the White majority. As I’ve often noted before: “Blacks Blight Britain.” But it’s precisely because non-Whites blight Britain that there are no martyr-cults for the White victims Tracey Mertens, Kris Donald and Mary-Ann Leneghan. Their horrific murders revealed the truth about the harm done by non-Whites to Whites and leftists are determined to suppress that truth. Indeed, they are determined to go further: not merely to suppress the truth but to invert it. That’s why they created the martyr-cult of Stephen Lawrence, which is devoted to promoting the gigantic leftist lie that cruel and vicious Whites are an ominous and omnipresent threat to the lives and welfare of gentle, enriching non-Whites.

The murder of Tracey Mertens shatters that gigantic leftist lie, which is why she has no martyr-cult. Like the rape-gangs of Rotherham, her murder proves that feminists have no real concern for the lives and welfare of ordinary women and girls. Instead, like all other mainstream leftists, they are concerned with only one thing: advancing the cause of leftism. They want power and privilege for themselves, and have no qualms about sacrificing ordinary women to gain those all-important things. Non-white immigration causes enormous and growing harm to White women across the West, but non-Whites are footsoldiers in the leftist war on the West, so feminists are fully in support of open borders. In other words, feminism promotes femicide, or the murder of women. At the same time, feminists pretend to oppose femicide. For example, the Black male feminist Keith Fraser has recently issued a stirring “call to action for men and boys”:

Black male feminist Keith Fraser, who postures about ending male violence against women while working to increase it (image from Gov.uk)

Today is White Ribbon Day, an international campaign observed on 25 November each year, calling for the elimination of violence against women and girls.

As the Chair of the Youth Justice Board (YJB) and a former police officer, I’ve had the privilege of working across organisations that help to shape the lives of children and young adults, particularly those caught up in the youth justice system. My personal and professional journey has been driven by a commitment to safety and positive societal change. My time as a police officer meant I have witnessed first-hand the devastating impact of violence against women and girls. This issue is not just something we read about in headlines; it’s a daily reality for countless women. It tears apart individuals, families and communities.

White Ribbon Day offers a powerful opportunity for men and boys to be allies for women and girls. I myself take an active role in promoting gender equality and challenging behaviours and attitudes that perpetuate violence against women and girls, and today I am calling on the youth justice sector to do the same. It is so important to have positive male role models within these spaces and beyond. White Ribbon Day also marks the start of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, which runs until Human Rights Day on 10 December. (“White Ribbon Day 2024 — a call to action for men and boys,” The official British government website, November 2024)

In fact, Keith Fraser was issuing a call for posturing about violence against women and girls, not a call to action about the problem. Leftists like him take action only to increase violence against women and girls. Those “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence” took place at the same time as some horrific stories about male violence were in the British media. Men were on trial for committing bestial crimes against these women and girls:

∙ Natalie Shotter, a 37-year-old White woman who was orally raped to death while lying unconscious on a bench in a London park

∙ Sara Sharif, a 10-year-old Polish-Pakistani girl who had been viciously beaten and tortured for years before being murdered — her autopsy revealed “10 spinal fractures and further fractures to her right collar bone, both shoulder blades, both arms, both hands, three separate fingers, bones near the wrist in each hand, two ribs and her hyoid bone in the neck”

∙ Elianne Andam, a 15-year-old Black schoolgirl stabbed to death in London after trying to help a female friend retrieve belongings from an ex-boyfriend

∙ Amie Gray, a 34-year-old White woman stabbed to death on a tourist beach as she picnicked with a White female friend, who was also savagely attacked

The racially diverse female victims of bestial male violence and their non-White killers

Every one of those female victims is worthy of a feminist  martyr-cult but will never receive one. Why not? It’s very simple: because the male killers are all UUSFLL rather than useful for leftism. That is, the killers are Utterly Un-Suitable For Leftist Lies, because all of them are non-White. Even worse, three of them are Muslims. Natalie Shotter was raped to death by a Black Muslim called Mohamed Iidow (sic). Sara Sharif was beaten and tortured to death by her own father, a Pakistani Muslim called Urfan Sharif. Elianne Andam was stabbed to death by a Black teenager called Hassan Sentamu. Amie Gray was stabbed to death by an “Iraqi-Thai Muslim” called Nasen Saadi, a criminology student who appears to have been motivated by a sexual fetish about the random murder of women. The Guardian reported that “he may have taken sexual pleasure in the killing,” because while “he was being held in the high-security Belmarsh prison in south-east London, awaiting trial, he asked a female officer if the killing was making headlines and then masturbated in front of her.”

An attractive White and two ugly Blacks: Tracey Mertens compared with Stephen Lawrence and George Floyd

But you can be sure that the Guardian and rest of the mainstream British media will soon end any discussion of Nasen Saadi and the other killers. Like many thousands of other violent and depraved criminals across the West, Saadi and Company are UUSFLL — Utterly Un-Suitable For Leftist Lies. That is, they’re non-White and reveal the truth about non-White pathologies, so feminists and other leftists cannot use their depraved crimes to advance the cause of leftism. That’s why their female victims will soon be forgotten, just as Tracey Mertens was before them. And there’s one more key contrast to note between Tracey Mertens and Stephen Lawrence — and between Tracey Mertens and George Floyd, the thuggish Black criminal who inspired a world-wide martyr-cult after his self-inflicted death in 2020. Tracey Mertens was attractive; Lawrence and Floyd were ugly. By basing mendacious martyr-cults on two ugly Blacks, leftists prove that they hate the middle term of Belloc’s Godly triad just as much as they hate the terms that flank it on left and right. This is what the great Catholic writer Hilaire Belloc said in 1936:

[T]here is (as the greatest of the ancient Greeks discovered) a certain indissoluble Trinity of Truth, Beauty and Goodness. You cannot deny or attack one of these three without at the same time denying or attacking both the others. Therefore with the advance of this new and terrible enemy against the Faith and all that civilization which the Faith produces, there is coming not only a contempt for beauty but a hatred of it; and immediately upon the heels of this there appears a contempt and hatred for virtue. (The Great Heresies, chapter 6, “The Modern Phase”)

Belloc was a highly insightful and honest man, so it should come as no surprise that he has long been condemned for “anti-Semitism.” As Andrew Joyce has described in his review of Belloc’s The Jews (1922), Belloc identified and condemned clear patterns of Jewish predation and subversion within White societies. If he were alive today, Belloc would readily understand and explain why the modern West is consumed by a cult of minority-worship that insists Whites can do no right and non-Whites can do no wrong.

Yes, Belloc would have seen and said that minority-worship is yet another example of Jewish subversion. The cult centers on Blacks, who are the most harmful, obnoxious, unintelligent, unattractive and unproductive of all minorities. In other words, they are the group that least resembles Whites. And that’s precisely why the hostile Jewish elite selected Blacks for transformation into the archetypal saintly victims of White oppression. The martyr-cults of Stephen Lawrence and George Floyd don’t merely deny racial reality: they turn the reality on its head and proclaim that sinful Whites harm saintly non-Whites. Like the sadistic murder on the New York subway, the sadistic murder of Tracey Mertens in an English churchyard demolishes those leftist lies. That’s why feminists will ignore the murder in New York just as they’ve ignored the murder in England. Like leftism as a whole, feminism is an ethically and intellectually bankrupt ideology that works to increase femicide and female suffering, not to end them. And like leftism as a whole, femicidal feminism expresses the will of Jews, not of Whites.

‘57% of European Jews consider leaving’: Europe’s post-Gaza antisemitism surge

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Of course, they won’t all leave. Poorer Jews are more likely to leave because they can’t easily escape the blowback from the Gaza genocide. But wealthy Jews will stay. And nothing is likely to change given the role of Jewish elites throughout the West. And zero attempt to justify Israeli unjustifiable actions.

What has happened in Gaza and Israeli’s aggressive actions throughout the Middle East may turn out to be a turning point of Jewish history. Impossible to see Jews as victims but they are still trying:

His solutions included mandatory visits to Holocaust memorial sites and concentration camps for all Austrian youth, support for antisemitism research in academia to combat campus ignorance and a clear institutional and political recognition of October 7 as the largest pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust. …
“It’s essential to remember that European countries’ fight against antisemitism isn’t a favor to Jews or Israel but part of the battle for Europe’s identity and character. The concern over European Jewry’s departure is real and history has shown this would signal Europe’s unraveling.”
Before getting overly optimistic, it’s worth noting that according to the Israelite Community of Vienna (IKG), 1,147 antisemitic incidents were reported in Austria in 2023, 720 of which took place after the October 7 massacre. This marks a 60% increase year-on-year – but Austria’s fight against this horrifying trend is still commendable.
One of the summit’s critical efforts is promoting the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) antisemitism definition. Drafted in Budapest in 2015, it’s a non-legally binding working definition.

‘57% of European Jews consider leaving’: Europe’s worrying antisemitism surge

Combat Antisemitism Movement conference in Vienna brings together local community leaders to warn of growing antisemitic sentiment and come up with solutions as most European Jews consider emigrating

Tamar Sebok, Vienna|12.25.24 | 21:01
“Most antisemites I know don’t think they’re antisemites. They respond just like we do: they hold conferences and believe they’re defending human rights, thinking they’re actually the greatest opponents of antisemitism,” said David Hirsch, a sociology professor at the University of London’s Goldsmiths College and founder of Engage, a movement combating academic boycotts on Israel.
According to him, “fields like the humanities and arts are becoming hostile toward anyone connected to Israel and most Jews. The solution is to shift the discussion to content and facts because this way it’s pretty clear who’s committing genocide and who’s not. You could say each side presents its own set of facts. It’s very hard to sway the public with comparisons between October 7 and Gaza.”
הפגנת נגד ישראל במדריד

Pro-Palestinian rally in Madrid, Spain
(Photo: OSCAR DEL POZO / AFP)
Hirsch, like other speakers from Europe’s Jewish community, attended this month’s “Action Matters” summit in Vienna.
The event was organized by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), an independent organization operating globally for five years, building connections among mayors and politicians to influence the fight against antisemitism and the European Leadership Network (ELNET), a European organization founded in 2007 to strengthen ties between Israel and Europe.
Typically, such events focus on reporting the rise of antisemitism in Europe. The novelty of this summit was its emphasis on actionable methods to combat this widespread phenomenon that’s breaking records unseen since World War II.
The number of antisemitic incidents has risen by about 400% in some parts of Europe since October 7. “We’re losing the battle,” said Dr. Ariel Muzicant, president of the European Jewish Congress, at the summit’s outset. “57% of European Jews are considering leaving. In a few years, 50% of the communities may no longer exist.”
The event’s significance lies in its target audience. Most summit attendees were non-Jewish members of parliament and city representatives from across Europe who are determined to act against the alarming spread of antisemitism. They came to share their actions and gather new ideas. Among the cities represented were Krakow, Ljubljana, Berlin, Vienna and Malmo.

פרופ' דוד הירש

Prof. David Hirsch
(Photo: Alissar Najjar)
In addition to topics discussed with the entire audience, small group discussions addressed curbing antisemitism and boycotts online, in universities and in sports. Yael Arad, chair of Israel’s Olympic Committee, participated in one such discussion sharing her successful handling of the painful issue during the 2024 Paris Olympics.
CAM Director Sacha Roytman Dratwa declared, “We believe in collaborating with a broad spectrum of government officials, mayors, religious and community leaders, diplomats, cultural influencers, educators, artists and business leaders.
“Through this inclusive mobilization of diverse disciplines, we believe we can build a global coalition against antisemitism and achieve strategic, profound and meaningful social change in combating it.”
Why Vienna? CAM Director of European Affairs Oriana Marie Kruger explained: “This is a city doing incredible work against antisemitism and racism. It has a rich Jewish history. We’ve already held summits in Greece and Germany and next year we’ll host one in Paris.”
In Austria, burning the Israeli flag is prohibited and chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is illegal. The event opened with a speech by former president of Austria’s National Council Wolfgang Alexander Sobotka, a well-known fighter against antisemitism.

אוריאן מרי קרוגר, העומדת בראש התנועה למאבק באנטישמיות באירופה

Oriana Marie Kruger
(Photo: Alissar Najjar)
His solutions included mandatory visits to Holocaust memorial sites and concentration camps for all Austrian youth, support for antisemitism research in academia to combat campus ignorance and a clear institutional and political recognition of October 7 as the largest pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust.
Israel’s ambassador to Vienna, David Roet, also stressed Austria’s efforts to combat antisemitism: “The same Austria that welcomed Hitler with cheers is now leading the fight against antisemitism in Europe. The normalization of antisemitism and the situation where Jews are the only minority whose claims of racism are dismissed with scorn cannot continue.
“It’s essential to remember that European countries’ fight against antisemitism isn’t a favor to Jews or Israel but part of the battle for Europe’s identity and character. The concern over European Jewry’s departure is real and history has shown this would signal Europe’s unraveling.”
Before getting overly optimistic, it’s worth noting that according to the Israelite Community of Vienna (IKG), 1,147 antisemitic incidents were reported in Austria in 2023, 720 of which took place after the October 7 massacre. This marks a 60% increase year-on-year – but Austria’s fight against this horrifying trend is still commendable.
One of the summit’s critical efforts is promoting the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) antisemitism definition. Drafted in Budapest in 2015, it’s a non-legally binding working definition.

וולפגנג אלכסנדר סובוטקה

Wolfgang Alexander Sobotka
(Photo: Alissar Najjar)
“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
This definition, which includes expressions of hatred against Israel and its right to exist as forms of antisemitism, repeatedly resurfaces as proposed legislation in countries seeking tools to combat antisemitism.
‘There’s no single solution’
What are the main challenges faced by Jews in Europe and what solutions are being proposed? “There’s no single solution,” explained ELNET Executive Director for Germany, Austria and Switzerland Carsten Ovens. “It’s a giant puzzle. The fact we’re bringing policymakers from across Europe here to discuss their country’s challenges and ways to combat antisemitism is the summit’s greatest achievement.”
Kruger pointed to several trends: “Western European countries with colonial pasts have become very antisemitic. In these places, Israel is often called an ‘apartheid state,’ and many antisemitic incidents are tied to Israel. In Eastern Europe, it’s crucial to preserve Holocaust memory and support Jewish historical research but there are fewer Israel-related problems.
“We mainly work with mayors and parliamentarians to change institutional policies, embed strategies to fight antisemitism and we’re already seeing results. In five years, we’ve established significant connections with 400 municipalities across Europe. In the U.S., we succeeded in declaring a ‘Jewish American Heritage Month,’ and we hope to implement a similar day in Europe.”

יעל ארד, יו"ר הוועד האולימפי הישראלי

Yael Arad
(Photo: Alissar Najjar)
The use of “anti-Zionism” (as hostility toward Israel is termed here) as an antisemitic weapon greatly concerns participants. It’s harder to combat pseudo-political positions without a pro-Israel consensus than antisemitism, which everyone agrees threatens democracy.
This sensitive issue greatly interests the dozens of parliament members and city representatives gathered in the wood-paneled hall in central Vienna, just a two-minute walk from the opera house — a setting seemingly far removed from the violence of antisemitic incidents.
“Identity politics, intersectionality, the woke movement and Critical Race Theory (CRT) are ideologies or social movements that, while not inherently threatening to Jews, naturally position Jews on the ‘wrong side’ of the equation. The strategic danger lies in their connection to anti-Israel and anti-Zionism,” said Brig. Gen. (res.) Sima Vaknin-Gil, former IDF chief censor and the Strategic Affairs Ministry’s director-general.
“The convergence of these elements could jeopardize the national security of both Israel and the Jewish people.” Vaknin-Gil, now on CAM’s board, directed part of the summit’s discussions.
Proposed measures against the phenomenon include naming and shaming, which works well against institutions or companies slow to respond or organize Israel-supporting audiences at sports competitions. In France, an organization called No Silence already buses fans to every Israeli team game.

קרסטן אובסט, מנכ"ל ELNET בגרמניה, אוסטריה ושווייץ

Carsten Ovens
(Photo: Alissar Najjar)
Social media poses a particularly tough challenge. Without financial sanctions, it’s hard to imagine major companies changing their lax oversight policies. Recommendations include creating an independent reporting platform, fines for abusers and “network promotion awards” for supporters from the platforms.
Antisemitism on academic campuses is a critical issue. Student representatives from Germany and Austria shared stories of attacks, the price they pay confronting pro-Palestinian professors and lengthy meetings with university heads that yield little progress.
“They don’t really understand the problem and change is minimal,” said Hanna Esther Weiler, president of the German Student Union and vice president of the European Union of Jewish Students. “We’ve lost friends since October 7. Some Jewish students only attend classes, avoiding cafeterias. Some are considering finishing their degrees in Israel.”
“They ask us for data on campus antisemitism incidents like in the U.S. We don’t have such statistics. We’re asked to dialogue with people celebrating massacres,” she added.
“Recently, at a protest near the Bundestag, someone held a sign saying, ‘Free Palestine from Holocaust guilt.’ We’re exhausted. We need help to strengthen our positive identity and financial support or there won’t be a new generation of young Jewish community leaders.”

סימה וואקנין-גיל

Brig. Gen. (res.) Sima Vaknin-Gil
(Photo: Alissar Najjar)

האירוע בווינה

Event panel in Vienna
(Photo: Alissar Najjar)

ד"ר ג'ושוע קרוג

Dr. Joshua Krug
(Photo: Alissar Najjar)
Dr. Joshua Krug, a Jewish historian and theology expert who completed his degree in New York, lived in Israel and now teaches at Heidelberg University, suggested practical steps: “Be proactive, not just reactive. Ensure university presidents know what Jewish students experience, what it means for them to attend class and whether they feel safe in public campus spaces.”
“Ask what the university is doing about it. Jewish students shouldn’t be told, ‘Better not pass through here; there’s a pro-Palestinian protest.’ Does a Jew feel safe on campus wearing a Star of David? What’s the institution’s long-term strategy — not just a tactical response to the problem?”
“Do they clearly state and enforce antisemitism laws? If not, why? Are those claiming to be pro-Palestinian actually so or are they Hamas supporters? Don’t automatically give them a platform; check their exact position first.”
2024 Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism
(Video: Daniel Edelson)
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“Jewish life has moved from the public to the private sphere,” Krug added. “Sometimes I want to stand outside with a sign saying, ‘I’m Jewish — ask me anything,’ but that’s no longer possible.”
“Ultimately, it’s up to non-Jews to fight antisemitism. CAM includes many non-Jewish participants. That’s the summit’s true importance: forging ties with politicians, mayors and university heads to implement these proposals.”
  • The author attended the CAM summit as a guest.

Immigration as provocation

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Sir John Major was Conservative Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1990 to 1997, and only ever an interim premier after Margaret Thatcher was ousted. All he is really remembered for is that he signed the Maastricht Treaty, which began Britain’s entry into the EU, and the fact that his father was a circus trapeze-artist. Major resembled a cricket commentator (and does in fact love the game) who had gone to the wrong job interview and accidentally ended up as PM.

One off-the-cuff remark of his, however, is worth revisiting in the current British climate of simmering anger over uncontrolled and apparently uncontrollable immigration to the UK, 80% of which is from outside the EU. Only around 16% of that figure enter the UK on professional work visas. Many of them are completely undocumented and are not in any way identifiable, having discarded their passports and phones during their crossing from France via the English Channel. All can be confident that these will be replaced with British versions of both. For how much longer will the British people continue to show the tolerance which is demanded of them by the state?

Step on an Englishman’s foot, said the former PM, and he will apologize. Step on his foot again, and he will apologize. Step on his foot a third time and he’ll knock you down. The first is seen as an accident, the second as an unfortunate repetition of that accident which, while it tries the patience, is tolerable. The third, however, is provocation, and demands an appropriate response. That is the position today’s White Englishmen find themselves in. Where are we in Major’s homily? How many times have English feet been stepped on, and when will the third arrive?

There can be little doubt that a main component of Labour’s de facto open borders immigration policy is intended to provoke the British people, and particularly the English. Starmer wants to “wind the English up”, to use the vernacular, and his party’s current immigration policy echoes the infamous phrase used by Labour’s Andrew Neather in 2009 — albeit critically — when he stated that Labour wanted mass immigration “to rub the Right’s noses in diversity”. Today’s Labour Party have more sinister motives than Neather’s revelation, and intend to rub every White, British, indigenous nose in the same ordure.

The United Kingdom is, of course, composed of four nations: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. But in the context of immigration, when “the UK” is mentioned, this invariably means England. Criticism of the British Empire, similarly, is not aimed at the Welsh, but always at the villains of the piece — any piece — the English. Immigrants do not risk their lives and their life savings travelling across Europe and crossing the English Channel in dangerous and unsuitable craft to live in Cardiff or Belfast. They are almost all Muslims, and wish to join the ummah in London or Birmingham, England’s capital and second city respectively, and both well on the way to becoming micro-caliphates. And they serve two purposes for Britain’s deep state: Their role in Renaud Camus’ Great Replacement, and the provocation, and resulting dissident violence, that the same deep state wishes to inflict on the White British. Starmer made good use of the rioting after the murders of three little girls in Southport at the start of his premiership, jailing many first-time “offenders” for social media posts (correctly) stating that the alleged killer was a Muslim.

Examples of this goading are numerous, but we will begin with the leading indicator of immigration, the statistics themselves. Whether or not it was Mark Twain who quipped that there are “lies, damned lies, and statistics” is one for the literary historians, but the phrase may as well be wrought in iron over the entrance to the UK’s ONS, or Office for National Statistics.

A novel way in which immigration figures are manipulated is by releasing upwardly revised figures at a later date. Thus, although the net annual immigration figures to June 2023 were originally given by the ONS at 740,000, these have been revised to 906,000, and this reconfiguration allows two things to happen. Firstly, Labour can blame the “error” on the last Conservative government, allowing Starmer to accuse them of conducting an “open borders experiment” as though they themselves were not doing exactly that. This also allows Labour to claim — correctly, given the revised figure — that the same figure to June 2024, 728,000, has dropped by 20%. Thus, Labour can claim to have reduced immigration figures — a promise every incoming government this century has campaigned on — and also to be a credible alternative to the Tories rather than the other side of the same uniparty coin.

The last Conservative government had as its worthless maxim “Stop the boats” but, as the BBC points out, “Labour replaced [former Prime Minister] Rishi Sunak’s ‘stop the boats’ slogan with its own three-word mantra: ‘Smash the gangs’.”  Since the election, Keir Starmer has talked about “smashing the business model of the people-smuggling gangs” working in France, as though talking like the Incredible Hulk proves his resolve. And these are not “people smugglers”. Anything smuggled is hidden, and these migrants are very visible. Strangest of all is the idea of “smashing” a business model. The business model for the migration business is incredibly simple. Migrants pay a great deal of money, in cash, to people who provide inflatable boats in which they travel to the UK. There is no contract, no necessity to offer a guarantee (and therefore no legal protection or insurance for the migrants), and it is unlikely that much business time is wasted filling out tax returns. If there is competition for your business, you shoot them, or they shoot you. The Home Office, like every other branch of British government, is obsessed with models to the extent that they now believe them to be real, and somehow able to be “smashed”.

But the boats remain unstopped and the gangs unsmashed. Where, then, do the British government intend to house these anonymous arrivistes as they join the backlog of unprocessed asylum applications? It shouldn’t be hard to create temporary accommodation. During the early days of the Covid pandemic, the British government quickly built a number of “Nightingale hospitals” at a cost of half a billion pounds, a fraction of the current annual cost of housing immigrants. Now that Covid is in the past, these could surely be decommissioned and used instead to house immigrants.

A report by The King’s Fund in 2021, however, shows that the hospitals were not even considered as migrant housing:

But over summer, 2020, one issue came to define the narrative around the Nightingales – quite simply, they were not seeing many patients. And now, one year after they were built, many of the facilities are either being decommissioned or repurposed as mass vaccination centres or diagnostic centres.

Where, then, are the immigrants to be housed? Presumably, the government would wish to tread carefully and not to show migrants as somehow receiving preferential treatment over, say, Britain’s thousands of homeless people, many of them ex-army. Not so. Let’s take a break and visit a hotel. Depending on what you are used to, the sixteenth-century Madeley Court Hotel in Telford, Shropshire, is both beautiful and luxurious. If you happen not to be an illegal immigrant to Britain, however, you won’t be staying there any time soon, as it is all booked up for the foreseeable future. The “availability” link on its website states that the booking facility is “not accessible” as “some required settings are not defined”. It’s the kind of statement you might expect from HAL, the computer in Kubrick’s 2001.

This report from Britain’s Daily Mail shows the hotel in all its glory, and also informs the reader that it is currently block-booked with immigrants, many of whom have lived there since the time that the Nightingale hospitals were still in existence. One Muslim gentleman interviewed by a citizen journalist had an interesting take on the economic cost of immigration. Speaking from his hotel — which film stars used to do — the man said that, “We don’t know who pays for it. But we don’t need to”. There are other ways of paying, of course. The local people will not be able to enjoy the hotel’s famous Christmas dinner this year, for example, as it has been cancelled.

The Mail’s report is also of interest for what it shows of the media’s collusion with government over what is usually termed the “far Right”. The paper is careful not to show any editorial disapproval of this luxurious accommodation for people who have never paid — and likely never will — into the UK tax system.

Instead, it writes, “The outrage was generated… by a string of right-wing commentators on social media… [and] many social media users have expressed anger” at the arrangement. It is “Right-wing” commentators who are angry, not the newspaper once ridiculed for its levels of outrage.

That there is an immigration industry in the UK has been known for some time, whispered rather than spoken aloud. They have everything one might expect in an industry, those on the front-line, those in the board-room, and those doing the marketing. That would be the media. There has been an interesting incursion recently, a Venn-like overlap between the circle of activism and that of the communicative professions. There are activist journalists now as well as activist university lecturers and public-sector chiefs. The Mail’s piece is more subtly pro-government than the BBC, say, but it is still a part of the immigration industry.

This also shows the importance of alternative media and their role in the government’s provocative use of immigration to rile the indigenous English. Yorkshire Rose are citizen journalists who visit migrant hotels, and below is a video of their visit to Madeley Court. I have watched a number of these videos, and there is a theme. Every video features a confrontation with security staff, and almost all the security guards featured are foreign to the UK. They are often surly and aggressive, and regularly tell those filming that they are on private property. Technically, that is correct, although hotel grounds have public right of access, otherwise it is difficult to see how guests could get from their car to their room. Usually, this type of video would be quickly taken down, but these remain. They are integral to the government’s program of stepping on English toes a third time.

There remains a tendency in the British media, alternative as well as what there is of right-of-center outlets, to attribute increasingly uncontrolled immigration as a sign of government incompetence. Terms such as “crazy”, “insane”, “lack of common sense” are regularly used to describe the influx and government failure to stop it. There is more than an element of the Dunning-Kruger Effect here, in which a person believes themselves far more capable of performing a task or job than they actually are. It simply is not credible to view uncontrolled immigration as government incompetence. It is intentional, malevolent, and designed to cause problems for the indigenous British firstly at a local level, and later at a national one.

I have discussed the British uniparty here at The Occidental Observer, and there is a clear sense that 14 years of nominally Conservative government was intended to prepare for Starmer’s accelerated program of flooding Britain with migrants, like a warm-up act for a rock band. This illusory transfer of power allows the two regimes to work retrospectively in tandem.

What might be termed “malevolent immigration” differs between the US and the UK. For America, the primary physical danger is Latino gangs and the cartels, in the UK it is Islam. The logistics of housing ever-more Muslim immigrants means that, along with the lack of employable skill-sets and low social capital the UK is importing, Muslim immigrants also bring their sectarian differences with them. Finding yet another hotel for 200 ungrateful migrants is difficult enough, but further complicated if 100 of them are Sunni and 100 Shia. And so, the British people have internecine tribal squabbles to look forward to in their city centers as well as the more general threat to their security and that of their children. Diversity is not seen as “our strength” in Arabic countries. And, day by day, the numbers increase.

There are approximately 110,000 British soldiers barracked in the UK. In the year ending September 2024, almost 100,000 immigrants claimed asylum, and there are several times that figure in the country, many unaccounted for, many anonymous and unverifiable. One of the most popular phrases used to describe the new arrivals is “fighting-age men”. How many standing armies comparable to the British Army have already been assembled? And when might they be mobilized?

The final, intolerable stepping on of English feet may be foreseen in Germany’s recent atrocity in Magdeburg, in which a Saudi immigrant mowed down pedestrians at a Christmas market. At the time of writing, five victims are dead and a further 200 injured, many seriously. It is a complicated case — Taleb A is “far right” only in that he doesn’t like Muslim religiosity but his beef was with Germany because they didn’t allow enough people like him to immigrate. Many Germans have taken to the streets to voice their displeasure. Should such an event occur in England — surely an inevitability — the English may feel that their feet have been stepped on for the third and final time.

Indeed, a similar event happened in London on Christmas day, although the police assure us that it was an isolated incident and not terror-related. It will interesting find out his background—if the police are kind enough to release the details.

Regarding Taleb A.:

He was critical of German authorities, saying they had failed to do enough to combat the “Islamism of Europe.” He has also voiced support for the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party [then why kill German Christians].

Some described Taleb as an activist who helped Saudi women flee their homeland. Recently, he seemed focused on his theory that German authorities have been targeting Saudi asylum seekers.

And of course the left want to ignore any connection to immigration:

“To the AfD, I can only say: Any attempt to exploit such a terrible act and to abuse the suffering of the victims is despicable,” the Social Democrat (SPD) politician told the newspapers of the Funke Media Group in comments published on Wednesday.

She added, “It only shows the character of those who do such things.”

Following the attack on the Magdeburg Christmas market last Friday, the AfD held a rally in the city on Monday, which, according to police reports, was attended by around 3,500 people.

AfD chairwoman Alice Weidel, referring to the perpetrator identified as Taleb A, said that anyone who despises the citizens of the country that grants them asylum “does not belong with us.” During the event, chants of “Deport! Deport! Deport!” were repeatedly heard.

Happy Kwanzaa! The Holiday Brought to You by the FBI

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Hopefully, Kamala Harris’ failed presidential campaign won’t dampen her fond recollection of celebrating Kwanzaa as a little girl, sitting around the Festivus pole with the whole family.

Recalling this annual event in her Kwanzaa video last year, she said her favorite Kwanzaa candle was the second one, representing the value of “I will say anything to get elected.” [Ed: Actually, it stands for “self-determination.”]

One reason Kamala was unlikely to celebrate Kwanzaa (though reasonably likely to celebrate Diwali) is that the holiday was only invented in 1966, when Kamala was 2, by Ron Karenga — and it didn’t exactly sweep the nation. Karenga, aka Dr. Maulana Karenga, was the founder of United Slaves, the violent nationalist rival to the Black Panthers. He was also an FBI stooge.

Liberals have become so mesmerized by multicultural gibberish that they have forgotten the real history of Kwanzaa and Karenga’s United Slaves.

In what was ultimately a foolish gambit, during the madness of the ’60s, the FBI encouraged the most extreme black nationalist organizations in order to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the group, the better. (It’s the same function #BlackLivesMatter serves today.)

By that criterion, Karenga’s United Slaves was perfect.

Despite modern perceptions that blend all the Black activists of the ’60s, the Black Panthers did not hate Whites. Although some of their most high-profile leaders were drug dealers and murderers, they did not seek armed revolution.

Those were the precepts of Karenga’s United Slaves. The United Slaves were proto-fascists, walking around in dashikis, gunning down Black Panthers and adopting invented “African” names. (I will not be shooting any Black Panthers this week because I am Kwanzaa-reform, and we are not that observant.)

[Coulter flashing her mainstream conservative, anti-racist credentials:] It’s as if David Duke invented a holiday called “Anglika,” which he based on the philosophy of “Mein Kampf” — and clueless public schoolteachers began celebrating the made-up, racist holiday.

In the category of the-gentleman-doth-protest-too-much, back in the ’70s, Karenga was quick to criticize Nigerian newspapers that claimed certain American Black radicals were CIA operatives.

Now we know the truth: The FBI fueled the bloody rivalry between the Panthers and United Slaves. In the annals of the American ’60s, Karenga was the Father Gapon, stooge of the czarist police. Whether Karenga was a willing FBI dupe or just a dupe remains unclear.

In one barbarous outburst, Karenga’s United Slaves shot two Black Panthers to death on the UCLA campus, Al “Bunchy” Carter and John Huggins. Karenga himself served time, a useful stepping-stone for his current position as the chair of the Africana Studies Department at California State University at Long Beach. [We used to say hi to each other on the elevator—Africana Studies is in the same building as Psychology; friendly guy these days.]

The esteemed Cal State professor’s invented holiday is a nutty blend of schmaltzy ’60s rhetoric, Black racism and Marxism. The seven principles of Kwanzaa are identical to those of the Symbionese Liberation Army, another invention of The Worst Generation.

In 1974, Patty Hearst, kidnap victim-cum-SLA revolutionary, famously posed next to the banner of her alleged captors, a seven-headed cobra. Each snakehead stood for one of the SLA’s revolutionary principles: Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba and Imani. These are the exact same seven “principles” of Kwanzaa.

When Karenga was asked to distinguish Kawaida, the philosophy underlying Kwanzaa, from “classical Marxism,” he essentially said that, under Kawaida, we also hate Whites. (And here’s something interesting: Kawaida, Kwanzaa and Kuumba are also the only three Kardashian sisters not to have their own shows on the E! network.)

While taking the “best of early Chinese and Cuban socialism” (mass murder or the seizure of private property?), Karenga said Kawaida practitioners believe one’s racial identity “determines life conditions, life chances and self-understanding.”

Or as we know it today, “Lesson plan for K-12 students.” (Except in Florida, thanks to miracle governor DeSantis.)

Kwanzaa emerged not from Africa, but from the FBI’s COINTELPRO. It is a holiday celebrated exclusively by idiot White liberals. Black Americans celebrate Christmas.

Sing to “Jingle Bells”:

Kwanzaa bells, dashikis sell

Whitey has to pay;

Burning, shooting, oh what fun

On this made-up holiday!

What a lovely day … for a Christmas eviction!

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A frosty sunny morning, shortly before Christmas. We are in a remote part of Cavan, not far from the Northern Ireland border with Fermanagh. We are waiting for the agents of a foreign vulture fund to come to the cottage and try to evict Our Host. If you are going to be evicted from the modest home you raised your family in, it’s certainly much more pleasant to have a beautiful sunny day for it.

There are quite a few airplanes, some flying in formation, flying high up. They are either on their way to or from north America.

Don’t worry folks. They tried to evict him, but they failed. They might try again: they will fail again.

This visit would be the third visit by the Irish agents of a foreign bank. The first was the worst: He innocently opens his front door in response to a ring. A dozen guys with masks and East European accents push past him into his house. The leader grabs Our Host’s hand, and forces it back.

“Don’t resist.”

The leader tells him the bank is repossessing the house and takes the keys from him. Confused and intimidated, Our Host agrees to leave his house.

There is one Garda (policeman). He stays outside the house, so he does not witness the assault. His conscience is troubling him: he is sweating and trembling. He knows this is wrong, but he is too terrified of his Sergeant to do or even say anything.

The repossessed cottage stands ón four acres of land, which are NOT repossessed. So Our Host stays in his camper van there for a few days. Then he uses his spare key to get back into the house. He changes the locks, and he is in possession again.

A few weeks later, two pleasant Irish agents call to him. They express surprise that he has moved back in, but are polite and inform him they will be coming back again, this time to evict him. He lets them think that he will cooperate.

Our Host has changed his mind! At first, he was lonely and despondent, and was prepared to roll over, not struggle and allow the bank to respossess the house. Follow the path of least resistance, as they say. The bank knew the details of his personal life, and knew that he was lonely and sad. They knew there was a good chance they could hustle him out his house and he would be too depressed and fatalistic to resist in any way.

Never underestimate the power of a friendly, truthful and encouraging word. One remark can change a whole lifestyle. There’s a publican in Drumkeeran who used to be very fat. One of the lads said it to him: You’re very fat. He started walking immediately, and does 8 míle a day ever since. He’s thin as a rake and in tip top shape. Three simple words made the change.

Our Host consulted with friends and neighbours. Encouraging words and lots of contradictory advice came flooding in. A decentralised legal team, made up of some of the finest lay litigants in the country, offfered suggestions.

Our Host had never put a fence or a gate ón his land. Within a week and with a little help from his friends, there were four shiny new farm gates, all perfectly level. Also rolls of top quality barbed wire. And some cutting of hawthorn to make a living thorn barrier.

They could destroy a gate in a few minutes with an angle grinder. Twenty seconds with a snip through a barbed wire fence. But it is important as a statement: I will make if difficult for you to evict mé.

As well as gates there were signs: Elaborate declarations that there was a fine of 10,000 per minute for all trespass, that this was private property, that all implied permission was withdrawn, that CCTV was operating 24 hours and could be used in a court of law. All this was signed by Our Host in big dramatic writing. Then he nailed them to the big poplar trees lining the boreen.

The Irish agents ring Our Host. He tells them he intends to stay in the property and will contest the eviction through the courts. They are polite. About ten minutes later, they arrive at the property. They make no attempt to climb over the new gate. Our Host strolls down to the gate to talk to them. I follow thirty yards behind, with a recording device.

They start chatting with Our Host. Then they notice mé, walking towards them with a recording device.

“Oh, you have a friend with you today.” They are a little disappointed.

They are also a little bit upset that I am recording them. They politely ask that I stop recording. There is a civil discussion back and forth for a few minutes. Then Our Host signals to me to stop recording.

The conversation is civil and polite. Our Host explains the legal flaws in the repossession order. The two locksmiths listen politely and say that their role is to make a report. They tell him that the bank is keen to negotiate with him.

We part with great friendliness and even mutual handshaking. It is unusual that men in that líne of work are prepared to give their names. But these two men were brave enough to, and let us record them: The Little and Large comedy team of Steven Stacey and Ross Howell.

The bank never rang to start negotiations. Instead, a week later, we noticed a shiny big cop car parked outside the property. The cops get out. They are asked: Is there a problem?

They say they have a report of a trespass. They do not know who made the report, they were just told to go to this location. They stay carefully on their side of the gate. Our Host explains the limitations in the court order and urges them to get a copy of it themselves before acting ón nonsense reports of trespass from foreign banks.

The cops mention that they have never been to this remote location before.

Will Our Host get to stay in his house? So far so good. The cops have seemingly accepted that he is not trespassing and are aware that they must carefully consult the court order before responding to another call from the bank.

The Top Cop could, of course, just send in a squad of twenty riot cops next week, all with copies of the court order. Any attempt to talk to them would be met with a reference to the court order. They could smash the gate down and smash the door down too and arrest everyone for criminal trespass.

They could find twenty cops nasty enough to do this job, but they would probably have to look for guys who lived a long way away.

A pragmatic decision would be to be to negotiate with our host and get regular payments ón the outstanding mortgage.

Your prayers to your God are appreciated to encourage the bank to make this pragmatic decision. If you don’t believe in God, why not try out the telepathic part of your brain to send good vibrations?

Or you could directly contact the financial masterminds of this attempted eviction. At www.crowe.com. (info@crowe.ie) Or ring them ón + 353 1 4482200. Or drop into their office at 40 Mespil Rd, Dublin 4, near the canal. They have some kind of affiliate in New York also. Be polite and articulate. “I hear you are hiring foreigners to evict little old ethnic Irishmen from their homes up near Dowra. Is that true? Would you consider negotiating with the the guy so he can make payments on the mortgage? I look forward to prompt reply.”

Beir Bua! Nollaig Shona daoibh go leir! [Win! Merry Christmas to you all.]

Joyeux Noёl: The Beginnings of WWI and the Christmas Truce of 1914

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MerryChristmasfilmPoster3

Editor’s note: Christmas is a special time of year, and over the years TOO has posted some classic articles that bear on the season. This article by F. Roger Devlin was originally posted in December, 2013. It is an important reminder of the disastrous intra-racial wars of the twentieth century—wars that may yet deal a death blow to our people and culture given the processes that they set in motion. 

With the hindsight offered by ninety-nine years, it is obvious that the outbreak of the World War I marked not merely the beginning of the most destructive war in history up to that time, but a fundamental civilizational watershed. While the fighting was going on, nearly all participants assumed they had been forced into the struggle by naked aggression from the other side. It took historians years to unravel what had actually happened.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the German Army was the best in Europe, capable of defeating any individual rival. Yet Germany had no natural borders, and was vulnerable to a joint attack on two fronts: by France and Britain in the West and the Russian Empire in the East. A German defeat was considered virtually inevitable in such a scenario.

The Franco-Russian alliance of 1894, which became the Triple Entente when Britain joined in 1907, realized Germany’s worst fears.

However, there were important differences between Germany’s Western and Eastern rivals: France and Britain were modern, compact, efficiently-organized countries capable of rapid mobilization, while sprawling Russia with its thinly spread population and economic backwardness was expected to require up to 110 days for full mobilization. Taking advantage of this asymmetry, the German High Command developed the Schlieffen plan: upon the outbreak of hostilities, close to ninety percent of Germany’s effective troops would launch a lightning attack in the West; this campaign was to be completed within forty days, while lumbering Russia was still mobilizing. With the Western powers out of the way, massive troop transfers to the Eastern front were expected to arrive in time for Germany to face down Russia. Speed—of mobilization, of offensive operations, and of troop transfer—was critical to the success of this plan.

The assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Arch-Duke by a Serb nationalist in June, 1914, is the perfect example of an event which occasioned events which followed, but did not cause them; the men of Europe’s great powers did not slaughter one another for four years over a political assassination in the Balkans. Rather, the assassination occurred in the context of Russian guarantees to Serbia and German guarantees to Austria, which inevitably brought the Triple Entente into play. A diplomatic game of ‘chicken’ ensued, in which no side was willing to be the first to back down.

When Austria declared war on Serbia on July 28th, the Russian Tsar, conscious of his Empire’s military backwardness, ordered a partial mobilization. This action was intended merely as a precaution in case of a war that still seemed unlikely. But for the Germans, with their Schlieffen plan requiring utmost speed, the Tsar’s order had the effect of an electric shock. Germany felt it had to mobilize as well. Russia responded two days later by ordering full mobilization. Germany gave Russia an ultimatum; and the Tsar, unwilling to knuckle under, allowed the deadline to pass. Within hours, everyone was involved in a war that none of the parties had originally wanted or intended.

German historians call such a series of events a Betriebsunfall: a quasi-mechanical accident such as might occur in the machinery of a factory. Men were drawn into the gear work and crushed when no one was able to throw the emergency switch in time. It was a tragedy in the fullest sense of the word—a disaster brought on by well-intentioned but flawed men acting rationally under conditions of imperfect knowledge. The consequences are well-known: ten million dead, twenty-eight million more wounded or missing, Communism established in Russia, the Balfour Declaration setting the stage for today’s ongoing Middle East conflict, and the whole crowned by a shameful ‘peace’ treaty that all but guaranteed a future war of German revenge.

Yet, as we can see from newsreel footage of August 1st, the popular reaction to the outbreak was war fever on a scale not seen since the crusades. Europe had been enjoying forty-three years of peace and unprecedented material prosperity, and the young greeted the war as a romantic adventure.

The planned rapid German advance through the Low Countries into Northeast France was unexpectedly halted  in early September—the “Miracle of the Marne”—foiling the Schlieffen plan. On the 13th, the German Army responded by attempting a flanking action around the French lines; the French then rapidly extended their own defensive lines in what became known as the “race to the sea.” Since neither side could dislodge the other, and neither was willing to retreat, soldiers began digging themselves in to their positions—the beginning of trench warfare. By the time winter set in, the pattern of the next four years had been clearly established: a war of attrition involving trivial advances and retreats across a few acres of mud.

But as Christmas approached that year, something unexpected began unfolding. On the frontline sector south of Ypres, Belgium, German troops began decorating the area around their trenches for Christmas Eve. As Wikipedia describes it:

The Germans began by placing candles on their trenches and on Christmas trees, then continued the celebration by singing Christmas carols. The British responded by singing carols of their own. The two sides continued by shouting Christmas greetings to each other. Soon thereafter, there were excursions across No Man’s Land, where small gifts were exchanged, such as food, tobacco and alcohol, and souvenirs such as buttons and hats. The artillery in the region fell silent. The truce also allowed a breathing spell where recently killed soldiers could be brought back behind their lines by burial parties. Joint [religious] services were held.

The ceasefire spread to other sectors of the front, with as many as 100,000 men eventually participating. In some areas, soccer games between the belligerents replaced combat.

joyeux-noel

By December 26th, it was over. The authorities got word of the breakdown in discipline and intervened vigorously.

In 2005, an international consortium from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Romania produced a film about the Christmas Truce: Joyeux Noёl. The film opens with scenes of children in French, British and German grade schools reciting rhymed curses they had been taught against the opposing side: the British child’s curse calls for the complete extermination of Germans.

The scene switches to Scotland, where an enthusiastic young man, William, rushes into his local Catholic church breathlessly to announce to his younger brother Jonathan that war has been declared; they are to begin basic training in two days. “At last, something’s happening in our lives,” he rejoices. The priest, Fr. Palmer, looks notably less enthusiastic.

At the Berlin Opera, a performance is interrupted by an officer walking on stage to announce that war has been declared. The lead tenor, Sprink, is quickly called up.

In a French trench, Lieutenant Audebert wistfully looks at a photograph of his pregnant wife moments before being called to lead an assault on the German lines. In the ensuing action, Scottish William is mortally wounded; his brother Jonathan is forced to leave him behind, a psychological trauma from which he never recovers. Audebert’s men pour into a German trench, but as they turn a corner, some one-third of them are mown down by a German machine gun.

Meanwhile, Sprink’s lover, the Danish soprano Anna, receives permission to sing before the Crown Prince of Prussia. Sprink is called back from the front to perform with her, and is impressed with the luxurious comfort in which the German commanders are living. When he returns to the front, Anna insists on accompanying him, determined to sing for the ordinary frontline soldiers as well as the officers at headquarters. (The presence of a woman at the front is poetic license on the filmmakers’ part.)

The German soldiers begin setting up Christmas trees along their trenches, to the bewildered suspicion of the French soldiery. After the singers conclude their first number, a cheer goes up from the Scottish trenches. Fr. Palmer plays the first few bars of another Christmas song on the bagpipes, and Sprink responds by performing the song, climbing out into No Man’s Land. Lieutenant Audebert motions to his men to hold fire. Soon, men are pouring out of the trenches on both sides, sharing food and drinks. Fr. Palmer holds a Christmas Eve Mass for all the men.

On Christmas morning, the officers renew the truce and arrange for exchanging their dead. Dozens of men are buried between the lines. A soccer match ensues. The officers realize the situation is untenable and attempt to restore discipline, but by this time the men are refusing to fire upon each other.

A bundle of soldiers’ letters is intercepted by the French authorities, alerting them to the situation. Fearful of having their war spoiled, they dissolve the division and repost its members to various unaffected sectors of the front. The Germans are transferred to the Eastern front to face the Russians. Fr. Palmer is replaced by a Bishop who preaches a sermon urging new recruits to exterminate German men, women and children.

A major theme of the film is music. Sprink’s superior officer begins by telling him that, being a singer, he is useless as a soldier. Then it is the incongruous presence of music that leads to the unplanned ceasefire. At the end, as the Crown Prince of Prussia informs his men of their punishment, he catches sight of a harmonica. He snatches it away and crushes it beneath his boot heel.

The Christmas Truce of 1914 did not change the course of the war very much. In future years, commanders were successful in suppressing similar occurrences. As the war progressed and especially after poison gas was introduced, soldiers gradually came to see their enemies as less than human, as was the intention of the higher officers on all sides. But it has continued to spark the popular imagination in the near-century since it took place. A Canadian historian has written:

It [was] the last expression of that 19th-century world of manners and morals, where the opponent was a gentleman. The ones who survived, who lived to see other Christmases in the war, themselves expressed amazement that this had occurred. The emotions had changed to such a degree that the sort of humanity seen in Christmas 1914 seemed inconceivable.

Joyeux Noёl lost money at the box office, and critics have complained of its “sentimentality.” I suggest seeing it for oneself this Christmas season.